this
blooming spring
death
's been courting me
I was
walking down the road
minding
and plop a what
a dead pigeon
headless (in
the tree above
a hawk
a buzzard
winked) *
* * I guess that was a
harbinger for Crystal's call
I followed her into the Intensive Care Unit
a
dream space here at St. Luke's
busy like a rush hour station
except for
the patients
who are hanging on the wire
waiting to depart a
welter of beds and paraphernalia
a windy path through
where staff bustle
no
most sit at consoles
watch
or enter notes
oh
I don't know how to describe
this hustle and waiting
this bustle and dying
all
these separate beds
crowded stages
trickling dramas Ryan
is a stranger to me
Crystal whispers in his ear
Crystal calls
sobbing
their baby's name to call him back Ryan
's gone
gone over the moon
he's not coming back
and he's gone too soon his
hair is peppered long lank
salt and pepper
tubes are taped to his upper
lip
but they don't obscure his face
an aquiline nose is slimmer
I never
saw a more beautiful man
and there 's peace in him now
and that's bizarre
it's
a substance that has tattered his brain
tearing him from his family
shooting
the moon Ryan was sober
for twelve years
then binged
then checked himself in
and there
on
the locked ward
fell into this Crystal
lifts his eye lid
nothing there
is that the mystic's void *
* * how many weeks ago
was it
that I put my dog in the ground
yeah death 's part of the landscape
this
blooming spring
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