gastrojejunostomy

[fleur_de_soleil]

pulling her bed towards
post anesthesia care, we encourage in those over
bright
over loud Doctor Voices
;you did wonderfully, wonderfully;

drowsy and taken aback she murmurs
;thank you;
the kind of awkward acknowledgment
people provide when you congratulate them
on winning a door prize

;everything is better now;
someone provides -
[and i wince, standing behind her carrying her chart
as i read the words that liquefy
even the strongest of insides-
unresectable.
we can not divide, we can not excise,
we can not lift away everything, madame,
that eats at you. we have laid down our knives,
in a humbled rage, before something that operates
on a scale unimaginable to our thick butcher fingers
and our science-kit microscopes
there is no plane, 
where we can grasp the free edge
and pull off our suffering]

;let me breathe; she repeats
;let me breathe;

and we foolishly assume it is us
she is bargaining with, 
reassuring her that she is in fact
breathing and with us here
alive

;let me breathe;

[as she remembers slowly
her role in this undertaking, 
what it is that she did wonderfully at -
retreating to that smallest and secretest place
and willing the machinery of her body to
let her breathe,
let her breathe
while we unresected
the unresectable]

;you did wonderfully;