There seems to be a polyp
Up there–Doctor said, shoving
His big negro fingers in my face.
I don’t like to use terms like “infect” or “colonize”–
It sounds so anthropomorphic.
Like God.
But there’s definitely something there.
I can feel it, I think, when I’m about to doze off.
Infecting me, colonizing the space between the cords of phlegm
Hanging like empty nooses at the back of my throat–
And the stem of my brain.
I try to picture death every day.
It’s a good enough exercise, not wise, but “quite good enough.”
Like Sensei used to say.
Like reading the dictionary for traces of narrative and specters of plot.
I look for death in the really small spaces:
The dead mouse delivered early to my doorstep yesterday morning–
The one with the missing face.
Just seeing death makes it more palpable, more palatable
It’s some strange synesthesia: the tasting of color, the smelling of sweet;
Or perhaps insomnia has turned me Christian and back again!
I fed Mama Cat another midnight snack. This clock has too many midnights!
She likes the can with the silvery gray skin of the fish left whole,
But I end up chopping up the chunks.
Death is too gift-wrapped these days.
I want to open it quickly like removing a Band-Aid and dispense with the formal.
Miss Manners caught me picking my nose while I waited for you.
She laughed and told me a dirty joke.
Like your dad, who’s stuffed in a box–a really small place!
Where death lurks like a Hiroshima bomb.