I wake to listen;
Empty, I echo
You poke and stir
do you want my tongue ?
dry and suckling the water out of sponge
Tear off my voice
do you want my half-brain ?
or perhaps a bit of blood ?
you take, take, marry it, marry it, marry it
Needle into soft belly
the medicine burns through
capillaries
Empty, I echo
I am terrified by this
dark thing
Inside
of me, of it, of what, of
me inside
this dark thing
They tend to my sickness
I have an audience
a
choral performance of beeps
This
is a performance
“Watch
me! What me! Look what I can do, daddy!”
Tears drip and thicken
sanguine saline
this plastic mattress
this plastic bin of piss
this plastic tubing
these plastic wires,
crooning to the nurse’s station
this pained woman beyond
blue shroud vomiting into basin & she, calling out
for
more morphine
Empty, I echo
