Breath → Mechanical Breath
Walls move, I stay
static, propped
as yellow and white
polyester gowns swim
across floors, whispering,
breathing.
(Did I ask, Are we going
scuba diving? Are we taking
an ocean plunge, dressed
in these plastic layers,
this oxygen tank
?)
A room halts
around us. Hands
and needles grope for veins
in the lights. The blinding crowd
holds their breath. Who snatched
mine? Who claimed it from my chest?
(Did I say, There is a coast
somewhere. Rolling boulders
into the sea, frothing waves,
hungry gulls flying
overhead, sound drowning out
each humble voice, ocean
as far as forever
?)
Visiting Hours
I know it is morning by the magpies:
one on the monitor, a second on the white curtain.
I'm grateful that they are only two, not one or three
or even four, although I know this is no nursery rhyme.
“We’re here” they squawk.
“We’re here we’re here we’re here.”
I scribble with my hand. The larger one
understands, brings a pen and paper to me.
They let you come, I write.
Avian heads tilting. “But if only!” they say.
Then how did you get in? I write.
“How did you?”
“Come home?” they ask.
Not yet I write.
"But when? Tomorrow? Tonight?”
Not yet.
“But when? But when? But when?”
They squawk and flap.
Where are my opal earrings?
Where are my gold rings?
Hold my hand, I write.
They laugh. “What's in your mouth?”
Tubes and wires I want to write, but
how could I explain to birds such a device?
My life I write. Their claws shuffle.
What do you bring?
The magpies laugh and squawk and
laugh and squawk and flap. “Come home!” they call.
The little one swoops the pen from my hand
drops it on the ground.
“Goodbye!” they call, squawking all
the way down the hall.
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