Water to Wine

Another visit this afternoon-- again to her small cell.
In her long white gown-- that unadorned robe
that hangs to her bare feet-- she's like a Medieval saint.
She has that air about her-- she doesn't seem to care
about the tubes leeched to her arms, the cold
machines behind her with their foreign thoughts,
or that she's dying-- just that childlike smile
when you walked in. Those hands that played like water
over the strings of cellos are still now, and bunched
over themselves, like dead spiders. It's so wonderful
to see you, she says. They say the soul's a harmony
strung along the body, and she's humming
along her whole whole being, now. She's become so beautiful,
now the cord of her life's stretched taut as catgut,
and you want to tell her so, but instead you tell her
about the dream you had of her-- how she stood
with you at the edge of a slivered stream,
how she glowed-- he she smiled as she reached
one hand into her side and pulled out, one by one,
gleaming stones from her own flesh. She smiles, then,
but it tires her to stay awake so long.

The cancer's burning her up faster now,
turning her to light and tight-bunched lumps of gold;
now the doctors are sure there are mere days left.
You stay with her most nights; you finally sleep
leaned up against the wall. The machines don't rest.

A rattling breath; you start awake. She's opened eyed--
a red-eyed box emits a shrill-- she looks
as if she's trying to say something-- her lips
flap open, closed-- she moans-- and then--
From her blue lips, the glistening damp wings,
the oily-black insectile legs emerge--
A dozen butterflies swarm from her mouth
and flood the room--
the roar of gem-like wings--


[from The Arcana Fragments, ca. 2001]