i am not
in the quietest quarters
of that hospital where the specialists swarm
at every red light, their hands an insistent alarm
rousing drowsy organs from sleep.
the day is not a surreal
cerulean—cloudless
a few birds chatting through noon’s mild air.
the doctor is not a rooster
a cock’s sagged jowls and tiny onyx eyes.
he is not making the tremulous call
not squawking brain-dead, not sucking
his beak as he suggests an end to revivals
as if the defibrillator grows
from his own pocket of feathers.
outside, a few drivers are not calling strangers
to their cabs, not misting classics
from static-clogged radios
enlivening the air with their sugary sound.
i am not watching the ruckus in his chest
believing it is breath, believing
there is something left in him
but poisons, weak swimmers crashing
off the boat of his ribs.
the nurses are not enjoying each other’s
flimsy fables over lunch
in the cafeteria downstairs; they are not
laughing just to fill the busy room
with a bright sound, their smiles
a little like small slices
of key lime pie.
i am not standing behind my mother
when she arrives later, i am not
watching her heaving back
at the completely still bedside
of her brother whom she followed first
out of the womb then
to this blue city almost forty years ago.
i am not embracing her as she is not
embracing him; we are not a trinity of sad
more sad and saddest thing,
our longing for one less ghost
is not seated in the room
like an asterisk