May 10, 2007

(for Marc Kaminsky)

You squeeze a piece of steel wool
to get the movement back
in your fingers

take pills for the pain
then coffee to stay awake

you read a few minutes,
close your eyes and apologize
that you're not yourself.

Half in a daze, you tell me
the window cut every vein in your arm
except for the artery, and if it cut that
you wouldn't be alive

and I promise a poem for the healing,
but always something goes wrong.

Go write your own healing poem.
You have the time now.

Dear Marc,
I can't heal you,
you've got to heal me
by letting my words bounce off you

the healing was in you all along
and the more we talk the easier it becomes
to say that.

—Rochelle Ratner

Posted by dwaber at May 10, 2007 12:11 PM