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Our Hands
Braid a child’s hair in precise beaded rows
And shave a scalp just enough to access
Skin flap, skull, brain, tumor
Fold over a learner’s fingers to guide a needle
This angle here with this much pressure
Slide together into a hidden space
When Grieving
drink water
let ocean in
tears roll
erase beach
unground you
When they ask how he died I tell them
he found the gate unlatched,
crossed the downy path
into the volant field,
Toxemia of Pregnancy
There was the bed bent in half,
the needle in the wrist,
the crack of bathroom light under the door.
Your father tried to sleep in the hospital cot
Healing
When I thought I might die,
not eventually, but very
soon, I treated me more kindly,
as if I were my own child,
the girl I was, and the woman
I am, all melded
Good Enough
Three weeks after my mastectomy, I traveled south.
I slung my carry-on bag crosswise over my body
and jostled my way through the airport, the bag
in front of me, to form a barrier, protecting my incision.
I let my arm rest on the bag,
to take the tension off the shoulder.
In the Regression of Aging Bodies
There are buttons he can’t slip in notches
And zippers he forgets to zip
There are broccoli stalks that need slicing
And urine stains scoured from floors
There are socks that need feet
And shoes that need their socks
How to Get Enough Pain Medication to Allow You to Die
The doctors will visit you
at your hospital bed because
that is what they do.
When they ask you if it hurts here,
say Yes it hurts here.
Recurrence
What was it my father said to me
when I forgot to latch the gate
and we spent the night in the woods
searching for eyes among shadows
of tree trunks cast by flashlight?