You’d think we’d have figured it out by now,
what to do with all the pain, what to make of it,
this natural resource everywhere abundantly
fallow, in every corner of the world, every
corner of the body; you’d think by now we’d
have invented a formula for converting it into
energy or food, or cancelling it out completely,
dividing it by itself or the farthest star or else some
denominator we have yet to imagine; build it up
into something or break it down into nothing, pulverize
or patent it, put it in bottles, barrels, tanks, silos full
of what motivates us, kills us, brings us forth.

(Pain)