My seventh-floor window vibrates,
the room throbs in crescendo
as a rescue helicopter stitches
a curved seam across the sky
bound for Children’s Hospital.
A cluster, I say,
so small – see? I can cover it
with the tip of my finger. Tiny little
calcifications. I show
you the mammogram.
She’s as tall as the easel now,
purple tank top
underneath the apron
falling below her shorts,
My grandmother’s bed bounced high
But I lost the pillow in my hands
Four stitches in the small town
green tiled emergency room
where peering intently into the mirrored light
I was mad because I couldn’t see
Bleach your hair,
get drunk on champagne,
pretend the left and right halves of your face are the exact same,
ignore and deny it, laugh loudly–too loudly,
I notice the name on the waiting room
tab; it’s not a remarkable name,
but one I remember
from elementary school
A pacemaker and defibrillator
Sheets pressed hard with suffering
Seven fingers and one arm, gangrenous dead
Unknown liters of blood
Failed kidneys
B546 wants to die
eight years after they saved her.
Cervical-cord injuries are cruel.
For Maria it was a gunshot,
but it could have been a car wreck, a fall,
or a drunken misstep off a roof.
The reasons seemed to matter; now they don’t.
Thirty-two, alone, paralyzed, on a vent,
she mouths “no” to the antibiotics, the heart meds.
“I want to die,” she shouts in a whisper.
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