Poems
BRAIN DEATH
How does the body contain so much blood?
The brain sleeps in it
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so when we bleed we lose ourselves.
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The brain under its curved sky of bone, the brain that turns on its stem like a water lily.
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A cluster of leaves and bloom, a hum of flies. The day retards into dusk. Horsefly, dragonfly,
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a dull thrum of clear wings against the ear. What is their
language?
I want my hands to flex when the doctor stings them.
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I want to open my mouth and speak.
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It is either a long and mindless sleep
or a translation into a language I do not know.
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The blood that washes the brain to sleep. The wings that rest
on the unfurled petal. Divine translation, strange word, insect
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where the soul should be.