CO-MORBID

icicle light chips warped plaster,
flood cool from thick summer. Thinning 
my blood, its slow canon. Ache 
to replace the imitation—contrapuntal—
with clear truth. Repeat it:
a pulse in call 
& no response. Echo, 
echo. In the room 
where I fractured the candle
burns. Cheap neon 
flamingo, novelties to ease 
ambivalent eyes. It’s why 
we make art, isn’t it? To soothe
or interrupt. Recently the heaviness 
has become a cross. Phosphorescent 
savior in my Grandma’s room,
salvaged & stuck 
back up. When the body 
contracts I watch these beacons,
LED & GOD as shining points 
in the dense, dark heat. Pain
will distort you: twist 
the world like wringing 
out a dirty cloth. Some days 
I just lie there, waiting 
to dry. AC vents rattling 
prayers in some foreign tongue.
Look, I don’t expect you 
to call, to come over. I made this 
as a chamber to forget in.
It’s a gift, to feel 
so acutely. Headlights 
outside wash the walls 
in lightning. Emergence 
or emergency. Never was
easy to be born.