MATCHBOX

1. 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?

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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.