Room 1101, Case 6870, A Survivor’s Case History
- Her blood drags.
Its multiple anchors drop
but do not hold.
She says her body tells her
they’ll take their time, they always do,
but who wants to know?
- Aasté, wardboy, aasté
I say through glass.
I smell blood, someone else’e—
her husband’s—who’s down in the mouth, but lets
nurse lean her needle in.
I’m told its inflow will make her strong,
fuse the anchors she’s thrown into one.
Since we no longer get her drift,
please, god of healing, don’t dilly-dally nor click
in boredom your tongue.
Throw your weight on that anchor and make it stick.
- Patient found naked
Don’t put it on me again, this weave of cotton
that set me aflame, this hospital gown.
Attached by frail-winged thongs
to a pit in my stomach, my strands of muscle
may soon come apart, expose me
as carrion gone rotten.
We’ve been set up, put upon
by a new breed of spinners, of quacks
with their chakras, their mumbos, their jumbos.
Fresh whacks of misfortune assail me, doctor,
Leave me out of it, dear, out of it all
and this hospital gown
- On a bed
Like a boat pulled ashore
our plants malnourished, this hospital cures.
From time to time on tides that wobble it just
before dawn,
her head fills with water
remembered, its flow, its feed.
Alive with rot, rich with bacteria,
from it her good words rise.