Puncture Wound

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.