Penance

Penance 

When remembering where I sit,

My mind gives footage I've seen

Before, and when I try to feel

More deeply into these scenes,

I can't tell whether it's a TV

Show or a window into a room,

Then I sense a shutter clacking.

Sores rise where my body starts 

Aching at the points where I sit.

I gasp because I carry voids

As penance inside me, breathe

So my breath fills me but doesn't.

Yet wisps curl into the voids, hide

The gloom that underlies it all.

[sonnet]