emergency ((unique chromosomes tightly wound, unwind slowly from dna)) rooms

audio wallpaper

 

ever present— 

            beep—     

            heart rate’s-slow

 

             beep   beep—     

             pulse-ox-low

 

             beep    beep    beep—-     

             empty-med-bag

 

fear shrouds my mother—

 

mascara streaked

around her crow’s feet

makes her look defeated 

           like a knocked-out boxer

 

her eyelashes     sticky

weep onto lifeless floors

 

I brace—

             what comes next

 

wanting to

smear divine language 

 

I dare my fingers—

       defile these bricks

 

       this room

 

      these machines

               measure her life

               & rewrite mine

 

a shrill beep—

          my mother’s lungs 

          still breathe &

 

I see the streaks

of ___________

 

bleach sprinting

through blue plastic tubes

that say———

 

caution     keep away—

                 fire &  deafening silence

 

I look up at the clock’s

oversized face and hands

 

like a nursery school’s 

 

ceiling lights hide 

behind polystyrene tiles

terrified to shine

 

beep 

 

punctuates silence—

 

she is nothing more 

than twenty three chromosomes 

subdued under institutional sheets

 

stamped hospital corners 

hold her cold feet  

as if positioned 

for toe tags

 

like John Does in the morgue

two amino actors

stage final hours

 

my pen scripts

her every spark    seeping 

 

into the (faint) blue lines 

of my white notepaper

as if they were her veins 

& atrophied grey matter

 

Her body like icebergs

cracks into my flesh