Another Experiment…

(Imagery borrowed heavily from Dana Levin’s In the Surgical Theater)

I read your surgical theater
your bloody edge beneath the scalpel
your angels hovering with wing beats like the heart
your dying to live.

I found the crack in the tile floor
the one you sailed through and
got lost in for a while
came out reeling with broken toes
swollen scars
throbbing kidneys.

I thought about the way you hurt
poking the fire with blades sanitized by
rubbing alcohol
the kind that evaporates in an instant
wafting towards the heavens like your pain
when you break open
all the salt tears from your journey
pounding down like the heart
you’ve dared to wake.