It is now time to turn off the devices in the wing
And listen to the rain. It is time, now, to sit still
And run your finger along the suprasternum of
The truth as it arches above the viscera, and finally.
It is a time when wires & catheters marked “single use”
Have most certainly been used before: cleansed
And sterilized, but having spent time in someone
Else’s heart, they have been contaminant &
Ruined. I was strong and could lift half
Of everything. I was powerful and could be alive
And lithe as tiny scissors used
To cut out tissue in a human that had gone wrong.
Hell is a world of its own, with its own
Towns and country-side. There I stayed beside your neatly
Warm-blooded form like a brook mink in the clutch
Of a slightly larger animal & sat still, having
Spent a moment in someone else’s marrow,
A diaphanoscope, catastrophic as the good love
Of a tea-stained bride abroad the rain
Of saxifrage and clove, tomorrowing.