Lesson On How To Heal

It feels like a straw beneath velvet
feels like a pulse.

If you laid velvet flat, thick velvet
the sort you find curtains made of
in rich people's houses, the type that
seem to suck up dust and keep it
until they're drawn and send it spinning
dizzying you as you stand

take that velvet, lay it out
it's rich like skin, it gives like skin gives
it has a nap which is the difference
but anyway imagine it is skin, imagine it.

There will be a candle at this point
in the story, one that's going out, guttering
making a creepy shadow jerk

Now under that you put a drinking straw.
Lay your fingers on and feel underneath the skin
the velvet, yes, feel the shape of the straw
like a pipe running under earth, that's it
that's what you need to find.

Use your three fingers, right hand
until you feel it. Like a pulse.
Not a pulse, that would be blood.
This is energy, that's right -
remember the middle finger's purest
go with that.

Go with it.