Hematology

while he lives

here’s a list

of images

light in a filthy glass

pigeon dead on the high spiked window

clear plastic bag above him full of water if water could kill everything that lives in you & it can — 

i sit in a corner of the cancer ward

fingering the app that shows me

other faggots in this hospital

chat with one

i might meet in radiology

but don’t       instead

make the sick man laugh

while he’s conscious

compliment his gown

his new brutal cheekbones

that appeared with the chemo

if only it were simple as a magnet

sucking the bad metals out of him

if only i could make a better list

more magic      less language

periphrastic & restorative

if only i met that stranger

in the basement

& our pleasure rose

through the hospital

bliss poultice

for the sorrow-skinned who sit

half-conscious & half-machinery

while the sick man lives

all i can do is recount

the vast pastoral of his illness

when he is gone i’m counting

on all the good flooding back

his beard

a collapsed country

i’ll refuge inside

his laugh

a memory

so liquid

i’ll hear it

when anyone

opens a window

to scare the birds