Migraine
It comes in deepest dark, riding
a nightmare. You wake yelping,
you think from your fear, but discover
this distress is caused by pain.
The migraine descends, an unwished-
for gift, like a not-very-pleasant
prediction from a fortune-telling gypsy.
Pleading for it to depart never works.
Better to invoke blessing, welcome
the unbidden guest—it’ll get worse
before it gets better. Then finally,
as Emily was wise enough to foresee,
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”
When relief blossoms so sweet, so
unassuming, you wonder why
the rest of humanity isn’t spinning
in ecstasy for the opportunity to
feel like this. Just ordinary.
a nightmare. You wake yelping,
you think from your fear, but discover
this distress is caused by pain.
The migraine descends, an unwished-
for gift, like a not-very-pleasant
prediction from a fortune-telling gypsy.
Pleading for it to depart never works.
Better to invoke blessing, welcome
the unbidden guest—it’ll get worse
before it gets better. Then finally,
as Emily was wise enough to foresee,
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”
When relief blossoms so sweet, so
unassuming, you wonder why
the rest of humanity isn’t spinning
in ecstasy for the opportunity to
feel like this. Just ordinary.
Share this column
Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by Barbara Schmitz, “Migraine,” from Always the Detail, (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Schmitz and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.