Do you know how to workover

a poem?

I mean work it over like a

thug

beating out wrong meanings.

Or do you mean workover

like overtime?

The pay is double, triple for

straw into gold, if

you work and spin and

find and refind.

I have worked you over

in my heart

so many times

spun and respun the fabricstory of our lives

like tales of old,

or new testaments

a complex braid of

our bodies and souls.

Now it’s all one substance

so just hold me.

Or don’t.

The meaning is all the same

in the end.

What we keep

and what we throw away

all gold.

From the Spring 1984 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 1, No. 1)

Text and image © 1984–2023 by Jack Kornfield