156 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
156 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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category:
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- Poem
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ratings: G
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date: 2018-05-20
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post: post
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tags:
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- Poetry
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- Gender
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- Surgery
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title: Post-op images
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---
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<pre class="verse">
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Saturday is for mechanics.
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Sunday is for terror.
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Monday is for acceptance.
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Tuesday is for purging.
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Wednesday is for anxiety.
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Thursday is for sleep.
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<hr />
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When I am asleep
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The world changes around me.
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In spring, I am changed.
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<hr />
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I'm no good at images, only words,
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and yet for days after surgery,
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as anesthesia and countless
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milligrams, milliliters, millions of
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drugs leave my system,
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I'm lousy with visions,
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each lousy with meaning.
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I lay in bed, unable to move,
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struggling to keep my eyes open;
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I know that if I close them,
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I'll be lost, I'll be lost, I'll be
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mired in waking dreams,
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coherent visions with all the logic
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of that paler side of consciousness.
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Perhaps the veil here
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is still too thin and vague,
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the pool too clear, the monsters too scary
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too lean, too mean, too hungry, or
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perhaps I was too close to death
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to come away totally unscathed,
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too close to completely survive.
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It's as though, laying here,
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stinking of hospital,
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I'm seeing emotions play out,
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Scene after scene, scene after scene,
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anxiety shown in heaps of discarded entrails,
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hope in the ceaseless ratcheting of gears,
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determination in the marching of feet.
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If I were an artist, perhaps
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I could hope to touch these images,
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but as it is, every word falls short,
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too vague, too inexact, too tight to
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hope to explain something so vast
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by the very act of attempting to reproduce;
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I can only hint from the margins.
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That poetry can accomplish what prose cannot
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in its economy of motion
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is attractive to me, here in recovery -
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so tired, so tired, so tired - so
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maybe I can hope to express the dire import
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of these visions dancing behind closed lids,
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or at least remind myself on rereading.
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Even now, a week out,
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I'm starting to lose touch with the visions,
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I can almost touch them if I squint,
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lie real still, don't move now, but
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even then, a shadow of the substance...
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I'm starting to consign to memory
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that which was probably memory to begin with.
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<hr />
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It is two hundred miles between what I expect and what I want.
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Two hundred long strides that seem impassible from one direction,
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and from the other a day's short drive.
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It is nine and a half hours between question and answer.
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A half hour of jazz, nine hours of sleep, a scant second of perspective,
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and I can only traverse in one direction
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It is eleven inches between who I was and who I am.
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Ten of those inches are pain, the eleventh is numb,
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There's pleasure to be had in there, I'm promised.
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It is twelve years between what I want and what I get:
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Ten years of remembering who I will become, two years running,
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Eight days dreaming.
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<hr />
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What have you changed?
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<em>My mind</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>Nothing</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>I am not who I was</em>
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What have you changed?
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<em>My name</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>The word</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>I am called who I am</em>
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What have you changed?
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<em>My looks</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>The light</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>I am seen as I am</em>
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What have you changed?
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<em>My chemistry</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>The substance</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>My form is my own</em>
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What have you changed?
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<em>My body</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>The knife</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>I am shaped how I am</em>
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What have you changed?
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<em>Nothing</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>I was accepted</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>I accepted myself</em>
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What have you changed?
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<em>Everything</em>
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What changed you?
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<em>Everything</em>
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What became of it?
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<em>I became who I am</em>
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</pre>
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