When Tipping Point When Fallout
tipping point: noun. the critical point
in a situation...which a significant and
often unstoppable effect or change takes place
oed
fallout: noun. descent through
the atmosphere
oed
Seven Days Walking: //Day Two
Ludovico Einaudi
Refrain:
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
I see it in the one
bubble rising in the
syringe the mismanage-
ment of the plunger or a
dimming of the bathroom
vanity light after a brusque
pre-Thanksgiving
snow squall, the sudden
going out then coming on
of power. He was three months
into his new diagnosis, of the every-
other-day-dosage (akin to) low
grade chemo. To lube
the losing myelin. To sooth dying
nerves. To keep them going...
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
and the nights sweats
and the site sores
on the thighs
the inch or two above
the belt line
the flabby backside
the triceps brachii...
and the calendar slide
into the end of daylight
savings time where nine
days prior she'd concluded
everything on the shelf
behind the lights was worth
her life and now we stood
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
reflected in the same
glass where she last saw
herself and then (i imagine
it this way) she quite quietly
like a small quantity of clean
and ready to put away laundry
unfolded her body onto the linoleum
and never woke up
again. Our son had just turned
three. Our daughter: one. And that
bubble. How if I pushed just enough
it would rise out of the body and through
the needle and not lose any quantity
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
it would make
the ghost of my mother's
body (because I saw that, yes)
on the floor be maybe something
like grace arriving on the later train
and taking us into her arms to say
not unforeign things but un-
languageable things,
muscle and blood kinds
of things, blood where
vows are made into muscle.
I watched myself swab the newest
spot of my husband's
pocked dermis. I washed
in the small circular motion
I was taught. The bubble had
been plunged up with flicks
of finger/thumb and finally
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
the lights were on.
I was caught between the
geometry of needle meets
flesh comfortably enough.
I thought: my husband, my
son, my daughter, my dying
dying gone
mother, do more
than watch serums
disappear through plastic
bodies and into all of us.
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
Truth is
we see the medicine
on the tips of needles
on the tips of tongues
we see it and need it
to bring relief and ease
but what we
don't see is how
his body, her body,
his body meets and
receives. It is a
betrothal between
what's being
sounded and what's
being leased. How
one has to take almost
all of it on, the young
husband the babies the newest
suicide and walk out into
the world
stark blind
but pretending
to see.
Retro-
spectively and in
mossy slough of fatigue
dull sheens between leaves
budding between belief and disease
a petri of acedia...
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