Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.

                                      — C.D. Wright



Grateful acknowledgement is made to Oana Cambrea for the use of her digital art, Autumn (2007).



One



The wheelchair restructures the landscape
outside the window. One’s neck movements

cause the steel handrims to plant a glimmer
in one’s eyes. A blink is a practice in flinching.

One tends to forget, prefer absence to faces.
Easier than to watch the leg on the bed

by virtue of it sweating. Loss can smash
a water pitcher against the wall and leave

the carpet to absorb the orange juice,
the flies. One must be patient, says the doctor.

It may take weeks to process the artificial
one. If one has no friends to talk to,

I can recommend someone. He tilts his head
for confirmation and, in doing so, appears

to have hung himself with his stethoscope.
One has no more answers. One is tired

of holding one’s body up for a weight that used
to be divisible by two. The doctor goes out

as quietly as he cut through bone and leaves
one to study the universe of one limb, missing.



                         previously published in Seeing Birds is a Kind of Adieu (Cinnamon Press, 2010)