Thrown 

The knife to my back

is my back. I’m hunched

like an old man lost

in thought, confused

mid-thicket and pathless

room, in search of respite

and harbor, broken

masted. The distance

between couch and bed is

Odysseyan. Mid-life

midnight mid-knife. As if

the sacrum had misheard

some sacred order: backs

in fully locked position,

we’ve begun our descent.