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Poems
The Day After
you ran a knife across
your wrists, you called
to say you had finally
tried coffee.
Cancer Update Number 12 via YouTube
He speaks of Kali maa, goddess of time
while chemo and radiation pin him to the clock.
As if confessing to a thievery of time,
when they neared one hundred years,
my parents said they never expected to live so long.
Their time unfolded like a painted fan.
Groove for the Middle Meningeal Artery
Pulling back the layers to reveal
the flow of blood in bone has left a seam
Pristine enough and perfect as to steal
the breath away, the fossil of a stream
Chilled Breaths
Stepping off the bus, the first faces
I see are the same every February.
Hard construction hats, yellow vests
flashing, grit etched upon their faces.
Daylight Savings ensures that these
are the last sights of light before
entering sterile linoleum floors.
Acute Behavioral Crisis
“Who am I, do you know me,” she cries,
this day when earth has turned to rot and mud.
she can not see but for the blaze of anger,
she can not hear the softer voices calling.
EKG
We’re together in the kitchen when you say
you talked to your new doctor,
the one who ordered up an EKG
because he said he’d heard a skip, a stutter.
Sitting with my father at age 89
He lies in the hospital bed,
the subject of barrier nursing,
looks at his fingers, and says:
Fingers! Figures! There’s a lot of figures about!
He slowly puts his fingers into prayer position,
his hands tortuously enacting transfingeration.
Anatomy
I find him sitting
in the midst of his fellow residents
in the dining room
that doubles as an activity space.
His eyes are fixed
on the TV screen
that has a photo
The Weight of the Soul
Dr. MacDougall measured the weight
of a human soul by placing a man
on a sensitive scale just before death
and weighing him a second time after.