DRILLS

Thanks to [Novocain] my root canal
Annoys but doesn’t agonize. There’s time
To mull on images of drilling. I’m
Orally plugged with padding, pipe and tool;

The dentist delves, with hypersonic whines,
to burrow and scope the spaces deep within.
The penetrating raspy javelin
Advances at an angle of decline,

That points exactly to the earth’s center.
The pace is glacial. Yet out on the Java Sea
My driller son digs the Antipodes,
Efficiently boring fathoms and furlongs ascending

The one incredible axis. Two probings aim
Each at the other; though separate, the same.

(28, June 24, 1992)