Bend – Damen O’Brien

Centred on the walnut wrinkle of the Earth,
out to the infinite edge of empty space,
a spine gets sore, aching like a yawn.
A spine is made to bend, an elongated ‘s’,
collapsing like the core of a star, pressed
by the finger of the endless distant length.
The spring unwinds and all its motive force,
but a Titan was charged to lift the vault of heaven
and a spine is made to bend beneath the heft
of holding up the sky for all of a life.
It’s more than good enough, each child of God
striding through your country, while your bones
are as much of pillars, frames of steel,
that your node of heaven, arch of time
requires to stay suspended, though it creaks
and strains with all that weight of empty space.
No less than a Titan, you are born to bend
beneath your slice of sheltering sky and though
your back will ache, and though the spring unwinds,
the weight will never be too much, and when you die
a shaft the length of eternity will be pulled down:
a falling star to measure the curve of your spine.

Damen is a multi-award-winning Australian poet.  Damen’s prizes include The Moth Poetry Prize, the Peter POrter Poetry Prize and the New Millennium Poetry Competition.  Damen has been published in Poetry Wales, New Ohio Review, Island and Cordite.  Damen’s first book of poetry, Animals With Human Voices, is available through Recent Work Press.