The Drain

 

I don’t know what to say when you

come home. It’s gone and you’re left

with a bandage wrapped

around your chest.

I heat soup for supper, complain

about the line-up on TV until

it’s time to change your drain.

You ask if I’d like to watch. I do;

I want to see.

                      Pinned to thin strips

of gauze, the plastic bottle trails

a tube that snakes its way

under your arm, the pieces

translucent, almost graceful.

No more than this to let

your closed wound weep.

                                          You do it

without a hitch: pour the fluid out,

check the tube, zip your top. And when

you’re done, you seem pleased,

and I say I’ll slip something

into that flask, a goldfish,

a gummy bear. You laugh

as you get ready for bed.

A locket, two frosted red dice.

And we giggle as you pull

the blanket up. A chess piece maybe,

a key.

 

(First published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Spring/Summer 2008)

 

 

 

 

The Sister

 

A Dominican infant born with a second head

will undergo a risky operation Friday

to remove the appendage, which has

a partially formed brain, ears, eyes and lips.

 

                                                         - The Associated Press

 

She is the other, the not-Rebeca,

the flesh to be removed. Her lips

still part when Rebeca feeds and soon

the men will trim and tear her off

like a husk. She dreams.

That they are joined but complete,

each with feet and spine and nose,

connected at the shoulder.

Or that she is the strong one,

whole to the core, flushed and sucking

milk down fast — she the pumpkin blossom,

Rebeca the dying leaf. For now,

they both sleep. The men ready

their tools and plan the cuts,

the best ways to prune.

She opens her mouth once more.

Never named. Unfed.

 

(First published in Controlled Burn, Winter 2005)

 

 

 

 

Fissures

 

Eight in three days,

these headaches. My doctor

calls them clusters, but to me

they’re swarms, like earthquakes,

rocking my skull, slipping its tilt.

A nuisance, yes, to drag out

the compresses and pain killers

as I log the times, chart the run.

And a darkened room

can’t always be found in a pinch.

But I worry more about a shift,

the trifling cracks

and splits in my brain

bleeding towards a break. I try

to bypass stress, but this world fairly

throbs. I can only stock up

on bland soup, herb tea

and keep my address

on a tag around my wrist—

who knows where I’ll be

when the big one hits.

 

 

 

© Amy MacLennan