Beat and pace is why I suggest it. Read it out loud and those ‘of’s cause you to stumble. That pace of measured resignation is in the following line,
Find a place such a long way
from life
from heartache
and strife.
The previous passage,
No wounds of hope,
no scars of disappointment,
no bleeding of expectation,
or fevered infection of care.
has four prepositions in four lines and three ‘no’s. The theme remains intact — wounds, scars, bleeding, fevered — so when you take of out of ‘no bleeding of infection, you change its pace, yes, but you make its meaning more ambiguous too. There’s a hint of the writer’s frustration. Perhaps it’s the Irish in me but bleeding infection is a powerful and immediate emotional image, then no fevered infection and ‘of care’ appears tautological. The frustration is there already. So,
no wounds of hope,
no scars of disappointment,
no bleeding expectation
or fevered infection.
There’s an palpable exhalation then, before
Find a place such a long way
from life
from heartache
and strife.
There in the black womb,
perhaps…
I can find time to heal.
I’m like a terrier with a bone, Tell me to piss off or you’ll have to fight me for it.
