In the Surgical Ward

By Carmen Calatayud
           my body at the water’s edge of opioid comfort
under the brain’s night sky

           rounding the blue curve of hallway

shuffle of gloved feet wheeling the gurney

to doors with a glass view of a butcher shop:
steel counters, twisted saws

           the long drive into the amygdala
awakens memories of a five-year-old
who finds souvenirs
from the day they cut into her eyes

                      synapses insist she is about to be killed

heavy under oven-baked blankets
           I calculate ways to jump the guard rails
with a morphined body—

three hours down, bones replaced by hardware

                      my hands on new hips

this body of screws, pins, titanium
molding into flesh

           metal is my medicine

           nothing left of hips of mother            hips of grandmother
                                            except Neptunian dust

but together we carry our cartilage

                                  their ghosts behind my wheelchair

we ride the solar freeway until our beings coalesce

make melodies out of silver
move through a trance of light

Notes:

This poem is part of the portfolio “The Chorus These Poets Create: Twenty Years of Letras Latinas.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the December 2024 issue.

Source: Poetry (December 2024)