The Precision of Pain and the blurriness of joy

The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy. I'm thinking

how precise people are when they describe their pain in a doctor's office.

Even those who haven't learned to read and write are precise:

"This one's a throbbing pain, that one's a wrenching pain,

this one gnaws, that one burns, this is a sharp pain

and that––a dull one. Right here. Precisely here,

yes, yes." Joy blurs everything. I've heard people say

after nights of love and feasting, "It was great,

I was in seventh heaven." Even the spaceman who floated

in outer space, tethered to a spaceship, could say only, "Great,

wonderful, I have no words."

The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain —

I want to describe, with a sharp pain's precision, happiness

and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains.