At home, I think I see small pools of blood forming in the corners of the bathroom ceiling, but they are clumps of ladybugs, having found their way in through the old wood of this leaning house. They are slow and silent as they mount each other, wrap their spindly legs around, cling.
In the hospital, beneath the syncopation of intercoms and monitoring machines, there is a silence: a woman in a room down the hall contemplating her amputation, snow- stooped trees through your window, fear.
Here, mail arrives daily: merchandise sales, conference announcements, friends sending cheer. I sort it into piles to keep, recycle, discard. I think of love I've left, and lost, and never known.
If I could really love, I would take away these tubes dripping lipids and glucose into your blood. I would liquefy the things you love and flood them through your veins: our sleeping dogs' rhythmic breathing, huge orange trumpets of the amaryllis we thought would never bloom, the crunch of the gravel road coming home. If I could really love, I would climb onto your narrow back and wrap myself around, guarding like a ladybug, or Achilles' mighty shield.
Laurie Cooper
At home, I think I see small pools of blood
forming in the corners of the bathroom ceiling,
but they are clumps of ladybugs, having found
their way in through the old wood of this leaning
house. They are slow and silent as they mount
each other, wrap their spindly legs around, cling.
In the hospital, beneath the syncopation
of intercoms and monitoring machines,
there is a silence: a woman in a room down
the hall contemplating her amputation, snow-
stooped trees through your window, fear.
Here, mail arrives daily: merchandise
sales, conference announcements, friends
sending cheer. I sort it into piles to keep,
recycle, discard. I think of love I've left,
and lost, and never known.
If I could really love, I would take away
these tubes dripping lipids and glucose
into your blood. I would liquefy the things
you love and flood them through your veins:
our sleeping dogs' rhythmic breathing, huge
orange trumpets of the amaryllis we thought
would never bloom, the crunch of the gravel
road coming home. If I could really love,
I would climb onto your narrow back
and wrap myself around, guarding like
a ladybug, or Achilles' mighty shield.
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