I will spend my lifetime
fulfilling the dreams of the dead,
writing to the living of
how their hopes were fulfilled,
hoping their prayers
will blossom a million miracles.

Wake dear, and rise,
sleep not this day.
Let our two dreams
play to and fro with each.

Let’s dance in the sun
shouting— one beam,
the light’s high joy.
You nor I will not cry today

as you gambol and swirl,
as I dream, hope,
now words, then love and vows
united.

‘Tis by the first touch
of moonrise’s delightful sway
will we share our future
with the stars.

My sweet little one, these sea days
are smaragdine.  I feed time emeralds
to extend your birth.  I nestle you
close though you float away from me
small dream to dream to dream.

Standing in front I see
all your suns. Breath unions us a
mist reared from tide.  Like a tern
winged in breeze seeing only the yellow,
you soar— dream.  

The sun is a darkness to sleep,
eyes not open.  Float, dream.
I grant you my gems, my nights
so no dark moons wane
on your unbroken horizon.

M
My ugly M: two lonely
crescent wings touching the sun,
an  Icarus mounting up,
than melting into the whirl;
the waterfall between mountains;
caterpillars kissing like
moths fluttering to the light.

OY
O- a strawberry, orange
just ripe for a thumb to squish;
a lasso, not a noose;
a good herd dog corralling
Y- to M to A; my tongue;
or the necktie that makes the
suit of my name, my place here.

A
A- the tadpole in the marsh,
the eye searching for the nose,
the hurricane kissing land,
the alpha inside the all,
acknowledging the end
is not the start, nor circle,
but the tail seeking the future.

In the cancer museum
I imagine where mine
would rest in peace and ease.

My eyes scan rows of organs:
Disney’s lungs on top of
Newman’s own **** pair;

Ingrid Bergman’s left breast
bump Bette Davis’ right—
indiscreet voyagers;

Audrey Hepburn’s colon
nesting Farrah Fawcett’s
like Tiffany Angels.

I saw my spot next to…
but the doctor called me
back to look at the scans.

He pointed out my growths
grouped in a triangle,
told me of their plan/cure-

called them clouds but they seemed
caterpillars vegging
out on my intestines.

I imagined them cocooning,
metamorphosing to
surgical butterflies

or staying just rounders,
yellow earrings just for
Audrey’s and Farrah’s lobes.

Then the doctor turned it
and the picture became
more terrible things:

rats, sharks, wasps all vying
for valuable shelf space
in the small gallery.

Tourists and soldiers from
the plane crash/war museum
wander in wondering

why there are no jet planes
reassembling in slow
motion horror, dog tags

melted into the seats,
flesh in the torn engines,
no screams of real terror,

just the crowd bumping and
marching into me in silence,
sometimes taking pictures

while **** yellow chemo
solution runs down my
leg in pupae slime lines.  

The last one opens me,
looking for spikes of grief
or fury.  Finding none,

not even a cold tomb,
just a rip, tear, dim sounds
as the crowd echoes down

and surges out the door
for all the Holocaust
store souvenirs next door.

I hear my heart rustle
in the computer bytes,
the breath of trees

and swallows in my files,
a dusty cross inside
releasing butterflies

to the sky as I step
back and watch all
****** into the blue.

“Do you think I got it
all in?” the doctor says,
snapping my last picture

I have to sew my memories
inside the lining of my coat
to keep them close but not inside,

something to take on and off
when cold grief needs warm reflection
or remembrances flash painfully bright,

when chemo and radiation
makes it difficult to feel my teeth,
tie my shoes, retrieve the hem of a future

through the barbed-wire fence of past life,
the cancer, the bad brother that shoves me
through, leaving me bloodied and betrayed

but safer in the ways of nothingness,
the death of my bawling infant self
that I just begin to fathom.

I lack the humility to pray for less,
just close my eyes and find kindness
for the coats I sew for others in the dark.

I am grateful for those strangers
who carry my grief in kindness,
those who shoulder it with no thought,
just a sharp awareness of the ache of death
whirling inside as I balance between
cancer and despair, the wondering of the
value of a cure in a world becoming corpse.

They pull me away from myself with
nurses’ caresses,  children smiles,
those few  holding the glass door
open until I pass the threshold
while they sing quietly to themselves,
all Atlases bearing milliseconds of ache
in the chain of Christ’s example.

I have called them and they have called me,
kindness birthing kindness, rearing kindness,
each reaching towards, backwards, forwards,
determined to keep me from myself
and the the temptation to step off the edge
that calls me and them, all knowing that Atlas  
never had  the solace of conquering death.