I have only these hands,
this blood-warm body,
the snap of gloves against
aching wrists.
Because I cannot take
your place, I carry silence,
heavy as pooled rain.
What do you do
when the wound is too large
for one body to carry?
Wound in the present tense.
Wound as weapon.
Wound as sleeping body,
unfamiliar in its stillness.
Your face unmoving,
anesthetized into memory.
I want to say
that rupture can be
forgotten—limb by limb,
bone by lonely bone.
I want to say
that the operating
room never carries
a sharp angle of light.
Instead, I say nothing.
I pour day down the drain
like antiseptic, my hands
hollowed with silence,
groping for remedy. Past
tense. I try to make
room for my grief—
it makes room for me.
You do not currently have access to this content.