untitled
i think i am in love
with little plastic needles, sterile
blues, the arrogance
of early a.m. overhead
lighting; size 6 latex
gloves that know
the thrill of a one-
handed knot
in 2-0 silk, over
and under
and over again;
back pockets
stuffed with blunt scissors &
stethoscope & note-
cards that read
like a map through
heartache:
the femoral nerve
courses laterally
to its artery as it passes
the triangle of Scarpa.
blood enters the liver
at 1500cc a minute,
mostly through the portal
vein, whose pressure
should not rise more than
5 millimeters of mercury
above the pressure
of other veins. neurogenic
claudication causes
pain on spinal flexion,
comes from central
locomotor stenosis.
other things too i
knew, that i would have
learned harder
had i thought they
could save you…
some nights
i miss those mornings,
sunless & taped
into narrow tubing
with adhesive
that still pulls,
even now.
two and a half thoughts on love
(part 3 of 3)
Weary and milk-mild i stand
ankle-deep in wet sand, each
footprint a burden more than the last
as i head away from the solace
of heavy waters and
back toward solid ground.
And yeah, this road has a heartbeat,
hums with the rhythm of some gypsy dance
lost to the world centuries ago…
But i’ve
run up somehow on the sidewalk,
lost control of fortune’s wheel and now
the stones you’ve thrown into the gears
make it hard
to start any fire at all;
glass shards like stars
sparkle
across cheeks who’ve
seen too many streams of blackest mascara
raining in through a late
autumn night;
meanwhile steam rises
out from under the hood
like the ghost of a lover
i thought i’d forgotten,
wish i
could forget.
I tell myself i’m happy,
unfold myself from the driver’s seat
and start walking; maybe,
Maybe this winter
will be easier than the last,
holding hope beyond the frost;
maybe my breath with steamy
tomorrows will dream yet
in tachycardia, untame and
headstrong like the pulse
of the ocean…
Maybe.
But let’s
keep this between us as
these are secrets
for a December
that no man yet has seen.
afraid
i saw her in my dreams,
crying. metaphor for an implicit
tragedy haunting horizons
between the possible and
the inevitable; echoed footfalls
fill the edges, hauling
memories from an abyss
like coal-diggers in dark hills,
the weight of the earth
pressing on their eyeballs
and making it difficult to breathe.
tentatively i step
off the circumference
of my own breathlessness,
look out from under my
lashes and wonder if
the meaning is yours or
if the tears will all be
my own.
