Waiting For Test Results, Barnes Hospital, St. Louis
Let me tell you how it is: your palms
don't so much sweat as drop off. Your arms
follow. This spreads like Novocain into your chest,
ignoring your head which is numb already, believe me,
from being beaten against whichever walls
have presented themselves. Your chest
is consumed and you can feel the lack of feeling
pulled over your stomach by gravity, leaving a puddle
around your heart – untouched –
because, though you may not have needed your head
to live this long, you will require heart to continue.
It stops somewhere in your torso
and something else happens to your legs;
they grow dumb and will respond only
to voice, so that when needed they come only after
much shouting.
An envelope or a file, or some such,
will be handed to you soon. Your hands – those dead,
traitorous things – will take it. Common sense
would tell you to run, leave the yellow doom
on the stiff chair for some other bastard to dread.
There is sky that some part of you could wake up to;
there is a breeze that you will not feel again
for some time,but common sense does not yell loud enough
for those legs you call yours to hear.
C.L. Bledsoe
Posted over on Big Toe Review
First published in Lifelines
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