finally leaving the hospital what details tired eyes will settle upon— the cloud deck voluminous, sterile the textures of gauze of cotton packing this maple has green leaves but the stems— the very hue and diameter of an artery bad news over dinner drinking wine in evening shade a wasp climbs down into the bowl of sweet cherries knowing from the opening lines the rest of the story before it can be said— a body […]
More doors are closed now in the hospital patients sequestered behind glass scrawled on with O2 sats a menagerie of respiratory failure such an artificial habitat- beyond the windows the mountain is out austere white margins suspended above the horizon by unlit foothills what a sunrise today– everyone was talking about it neon pink as the surgical masks our buyer found somewhere although with each minute the blockprint fades into just a day like any […]
What do you say to a man who is dying? A fact, just as it is twenty-eight degrees out, the sun set three hours and thirty-five minutes ago, this is a man who is dying, but is still alive. Careful, things fall easily here, this the greatest distance, none could be further. What hues in that sunset! A slow burn over the bay, the city changes its face, harder edges of night, but ribbons […]
ICU days line draws and scrawled fishbones sweet jesus overheard we stop at each door each door a threshold sunlight today but frosted glass a curtain drawn for privacy opacity for if it comes to pass this is a shore if anything a great big blank the lung’s secret space and the blood singing wrong
I’m getting versed in the unspeakable: the architecture of a lung, tributaries of veins, and pain, all kinds: white-hot, bone-ache. Removed from all contexts a bruise can be beautiful: pastel, galactic, nascent. The way skin grows up against a suture, shifting dunes. If all goes well, we replace ourselves. This is the brachial, this the subclavian— remember, a life is motion, and nothing less.
In the elevator without provocation a man began to recite all of Rumi’s The Guest House breathless and done by when we reached the top of the hospital every morning a new arrival a task to stay as steely as the stainless doors the same face presented to every floor– closed. Some momentary awareness comes the body also a form of conveyance and pain its sharpest tone
In the distance the sky a turgid pewter gray to a lowering blue but here it was just a bit of wind and waiting– . Catatonic in the elevator the woman said how is your day going my husband just fell twelve feet but he’s going to be ok I think he’s in surgery now and asked for positive vibes . It never did thunder so I did instead but a peal or an appeal […]
Some things aren’t as they seem this isn’t snow it’s petals from the tree see you can still smell the perfume sharply tinged at the end with life and green vigor not wholly sweet not artificial a welcome change now spending days in rooms that breathe for you and bleed for you if you lack the volition rooms full of the gone involuntarily and also voluntarily even those we drag back and to what– here […]
A rainbow of spine boards lean against the wall like surfboards the pre-dawn rosy past where the ambulances drop off somewhere in that fog out there is a harbor no beaches though it seems we’re on the edge of something here the set of red beacons that encircle the heliport promise both safety and danger welcome but stay back
This the vent alarm that something else it got late early with a death overnight with so few windows here it’s hard to get oriented but the sun came up and someone else took that spot
OPTIONAL POETRY 