Snaking through the transparent, saline-filled tubing,
the white mist swirls into your blood with
ephemeral whispers. Your cortex succumbs to chemical
promises of separation. I wonder: does your soul
hover as the surgeon niggles and tinkers, or does it
embrace the communion of solitude, carrying the flame
nearer your amygdala to burn in a primal country?
Here, the divorce is sudden, and we are left to think this
anatomy is you! We missed your light’s furtive
release from this worn soul-holder, this crumbling
vessel of clay that houses your long-wicked candle.
Escaping through the cracks as the surgeon cuts,
you sojourn in shadow elsewhere, but will return
in time as the propofol ebbs from your blood.
Some emerge gleaming bright, anxious for reunion
after being away. Others pause at the abysm,
delaying re-consummation. How will you return tonight?
One candle here, I wait, burning myself. Ash and smoke
rise in the OR to greet the chary one who wafts back to
kiss the body: your soul folds in, like saline through a vein.
