We are all born with a pebble

sitting on the top of our spines, resting  on the pinnacle of bone

between neck and back,

no bigger than a freckle

no more noticed than a child’s blink,.

placed there to see just how much

weight

we could could hold.

So, most will die with a mountain range

between their shoulder blades,

a full scale Appalachia of petrified problems

with maples and oaks lush and green

from land fertilized by the ones that loved us.

As for the ones we loved, they'll hang

like acorns on the ends of a twig, until they too

come crashing down

from all that weight

while a  man tucked away on a hill will be brewing mash made from corn

and all the things we never did,

but told ourselves we should.

People can be acorns, and our gravity-wrenched spines

will hook towards the ground because we won’t dare lift our heads

to have another boulder, another cliff

anchor itself between two disks,

the kind of pain we kneel under,

the kind of weight that brings one a step closer to lying flat.

This is why we must have canes.

This is why titanium racks have tennis balls for shoes.

Something has to hold us up.

But people are islands with wobbly knees rooted in cement

just far enough from one another

that no one sees anyone

shaking.

Thats the way we like it,

barely standing

under all this weigh