2006 - Vol. 3, Issue 4

"Amputee"

They say an amputee
still feels the arm.
It's so: my bare finger
wears your ring,
my lips, the soft press
of yours.
My pulse keeps time
although my heart is gone.

The trees plead their branches
to the day.
The world rises
to my eyes.
Someone says my name,
I smell perfume,
but none's the same.
I am not who I am.

A wolf will gnaw a leg
to flee a trap.
What cut me
was no such tooth.
The stump,
bit through the bone,
now ghosts
what I have lost.

"Sciatica (Genesis 32:24–5)"

So Jacob,
bidden, went,
and on the way
"wrestled a man."

An angel?
Some other
poor sap sent
the other way?

What is this,
Jacob, that 'til dawn,
smooth and sweating
you strained,
your errand waiting?

It says when you
were about to win
he touched the hollow
of your thigh.

Now I, these mornings,
hobble, a hand
on the ache, wondering
if once
I almost won.

"CAT Scan (CT Ab+Pelv)"

Look at this as
an opportunity
to contemplate
mortality

with a tube up your ass.

"Stop Breathing."

The table jogs
its increment,
machinery whirs.

Know your
bursting bowels are
stopped
in a technological
moment,

and maybe
your death is
caught there
fuzzy on film.

"Breathe."

Jim, I say
I don't know
if I can hold it.

Relax, he tells me,
do the best you can.