» Poetry

Two Poems

A Patient’s Family Asks What Do I Know

In the ICU, my friend washed another friend’s

face with the serum and cream samples

they hoarded from Sephora. She sloped

and shaped his eyebrows like calligraphy.

The nurses envied his stainless skin,

saintly, like he hadn’t made a perfect O

on an imaginary dick to teach me

about efficient blowjobs. When I die

I know my friends will be dragged

up in sequins and blush, will cut cake

with their contour. But I know death

has always picked my more beautiful

loves over me. What a lucky bastard, to burn

a candle in wild fire. To make breath

into moan and song. How we learned

hunger and feast from our own fabulous

bodies. I don’t know much of anything.

I don’t think as much as do, as much

as want and miss and admire. I hope

you have love letters for my friends.

I wouldn’t blame you. Those handsome

boys. But I’d say find another messenger

because when I see my boys, my girls,

I will kiss them, and perform nothing

else, forever, for so long we will be reborn

as trees joined at the trunks, a set of summer

winds over sweaty sunbathing hunks, a handful

of hard candies melted into rainbow.

Cadaver Lab

I figured it’d be months without laughter.

Understandably. On pelvic dissection day

my friend Amelia whispers I’m sorry,

girlfriend before starting the saw.

Another friend unknowingly holds

his cadaver’s hand during the biggest

incisions. Classmates I don’t even like

point out veins and nerves to spare me

hours of inhaling fat and fascia. Then

one group finds a penis pump and we decide

yes he meant it as a surprise and the boys

fist bump his cold hands. Another group

shares their cadaver’s perfect pink polish,

another has fresh, unwrinkled ink

across her chest. Like tiny treasures

for us. Of course no one donates their body

without a sense of humor. Of course the body

is a gift. We admit on dissection days

we all leave hungry, specifically for chicken.

I booked my calendar with hook-ups

as if to practice how the blood flows

while it can. One boy I brought home

had a scar down his sternum, a souvenir

of a heart condition. He apologized

years after the incision healed, like the scar

didn’t pucker like lips. I imagined the lights

baring on him, how so many lucky

hands got to press against his skin.