Unnamed Pain

Unnamed Pain

What dreadful scorching is this?
What consuming blaze
Rages through smoldering blood?
What fire refuses to die?

What swelling festers in the veins?
What accursed brood of vipers
Writhes and feeds and multiplies?

What sparks and flames are these?
What sensation shrill and searing—
The rasp, the sting, the scratch and scar,
The scent of wormwood, vinegar of gall?

The gnawing acid numbing heart,
Seeking a rhyme-word not yet named in –ine.

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