Go Well

Go Well

reads the closing

of your suicide note

from patient to doc

from elsewhere to here

I blink and I'm back

at the resident clinic

wearing the walls

like a head

You read Alaska

in the waiting room

cargos and hiking boots

as if about to embark on

something big

you came prepared

pad and pen

a deep whisper voice swaying

the sagging oak out

the third story windows

broad-shouldered

enviable posture

bare ponytail white

like the lab mouse

a beard the foam of ocean

water escaping unto itself

We shared the oxygen

in the room

more than pain or heartache

than bullet points or criteria

a childhood singed

a self-worth wilted

before it could ever erupt

hard up and love-lost

boulders of years

stacked on your chest

seconds in session

procedures in mourning

an animal anguish

no words or pills repaired

Despair took me

for a moment

bayonet of nausea

Where do we stand now?

lonely bullet through

tangled depths of circuitry

the dark garden burrowed through

A quiet arc of flight

swallowing stars in blue

black night

it gathered life and legs

it sightlessly scurries toward me—

teeth hair bone

a swift metronome heart