Just beyond the parking lot,
my husband chases
our daughter through
the trails of the Rouge Valley,
as they await a break between
my cases—to visit the “hopstipal”
where she was born, where
I still work on weekends.
I catch the train home after a night shift
my tired eyes take in the harbor view
a child chirps announcements in my ear
sweet mimicry doors closing please stand clear
last night a woman died or tried at least
her heart a panicked quivering hummingbird
beating frail wings against its bony cage
I first notice the fog, unexpected
on the inside of a windshield,
a question mark
along the run-on sentence of parked cars, and,
with a snap, you are there,
wrapped in a bag in the back
seat with parking patrol on the prowl,
but they’re not so keen, blindly
driving by in a kind ignorance,
and I don’t see you either,
only your warm breath
caught at the glass,
and all I have are commas,
The diagnosis is here
I knew it was coming
But did not think it would arrive this soon
“You’re very young to have it” the doctor said
My bones brittle, already
At age 50
I feel fragile
Her idea of a date is splitting
a six-pack with her husband
Friday nights while milking the cows,
still weary from her day job.
Swollen udders demand attention
twice daily regardless
of her daughter’s ball games,
her mother’s terminal cancer.
I slide into the MRI machine.
Sleds slide downhill, propelled by their own weight;
my movement’s horizontal, made through means
outside of my control: a man in green
scrubs bops a button, turning me to freight
that’s fed into the MRI machine.
if not a healing wound?
toes missing, trans-metatarsal amputation,
remaining tissue puckering deep pink:
raw beauty in disfigurement.
He shows me pictures on his cell phone,
the toes felt doused with molten metal.
Before debridement: brown-black,
the foot decaying like a leaf in winter.
They add colloidal gold
to glass, sometimes,
to make that ruby color. They heat it,
render it liquid and viscous, and
when it is just right,
the master glassblower blows into it,
Apparition of ice and stone:
How it swells above the highway,
over small cars and upturned eyes.
It sits on high. Pristine
and remote from me,
exalts me and cuts me
down to size.
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.
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
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.
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