HOSPICE
The ginkgos look sick
like the citrus I’ve let rot
on the kitchen island—
their other name’s maidenhair.
The last time I saw my friend
she’d cut hers to a bob.
When I ran my fingers through it,
she said, Knock me out, please,
put me in a fucking coma.
When I told her I’d been rereading
Mina Loy, she didn’t care.
Didn’t want to talk about Flaubert
either or any of the books piled on the bed.
Rehome the dogs (barking incessantly),
just get me out of this room—
She was on her back,
desperate not to be,
shifting, more like squirming,
her underwear too rough
against her, showing me
her protruding hip bone,
her bare vagina,
how every inch of her hurt.
Here and here and here.
She wanted to see spring but didn’t,
the sense of her long sentence
leaving her, not nearing its hectic end
or beginning again:
the crocuses peeking through,
the hummingbird she lived for in the feeder.
MILTONIC RADIOLOGY
Its teardrop shape eludes me,
an abnormality
or a variation of normal
—my father’s favorite phrase
to mitigate worry, placate me.
This ball of tissue
or mucus or both
lodged with me useless.
I’ve never wanted
to be as close to God
as Milton was,
yielding to his will
to get around feelings.
I understand the divine
as idea rather than body
or being who refuses
to love me back.
Abstract like my womb was
until this precise moment of pain
tethering me to now.
Zen hemorrhage
without end
making a mockery
of writing, thinking,
punishing me
for choosing emptiness,
vague apparitions
on an ultrasound.
What’s its function
if it remains inflexible,
unoccupied?
Who converts the imagery
into language? No response
but a head scratch, then
Description—not diagnosis—
will be provided by the referring physician.
Maybe what I’m seeing’s
just old blood—maybe not.
WATCHING THE PERSEIDS
Fox Island
how did we get here beyond the beware
riptide warnings too still in darkness
the blood moon through to say anything at all
let stubbornness whittle away
whatever it is we’ve made our bodies
not touching on this rock honoring
a drowned child while the sea
oblivious buries the eel glass
slick alaria fronds whatever it is
we’re hoping for I know we can’t
count on let alone count
quick miracle born from dust falling
toward us above us burning itself out