let's begin by saying
if you wanna be a hip patient on this unit
you need to have covid AND the flu

i'm extubating a 30-year-old
who'd been complaining the week before
that his life was going nowhere
and he wanted his mom to do his taxes
the discussion culminated with his brothers
shooting him multiple times
all in front of a 5-year-old

i spend the hour before lunch
squeezing a 400 pound fella into a CT scanner
his oxygen level tanking to scary low numbers
he's not a fan of laying flat

after lunch i pull the plug on a guy who
when confronted by police serving a warrant
for ****** and child ****
took out a gun to **** himself
the gun misfired and when he brought it down
the cops felt inspired to help him out
by serving him a buffet of lead

when the addled car accident victim asks for his wife
we explain that she died in the accident
he weeps
half an hour later he asks for his wife
we explain that she died in the accident
"oh i know"
half an hour later he asks for his wife

when i start the shift
a patient is reported to me
as mildly demented but pleasant
"sounds like me," i say

shot three videos, posted poetry all over the city
saw the Weegee exhibit at the Museum of Photography
he makes every other photographer fade to gray
read some poems with my fellow sad old poets
at Otto’s Shrunken Head on 14th street
went back to Chinatown (you CAN go home again)
enjoyed that Led Zeppelin movie
had drunken escapades with friends old and new
a fine conversation with a director at the Holiday
spent two days with my daughter and her kitten
took her to the movies, bought her a steak
hung at her favorite bar when she learned
she’s being sued by a hollywood producer
a fun trip

i thought of you
while cleaning the dishes

realizing
that you
probably
dont think of me

anymore

but i sure do

i wasnt paying attention
so
i dropped my favorite cup

shattered
into countless
little pieces

now its gone

forever

just
like
you

and where he lives
his favorite color cobalt
blue, the bars he'd visited,
and the few women he went

there with. I know his breathing
when he sleeps is uneven and
the secrets that he keeps. Because
he talks in his sleep. I know

the musk he wears, and
that he hasn't underwear in his
bedroom drawers, just a bunch of
mismatched socks. I know the

pounds he can bench, his favorite
food, Indian. And who he voted for
president. I know his name. But today
as he walked by he didn't stop or say hi.

the difference in the lives of women and men seems to be
That a man can live his entire life selfishly without being chastised or accused
But a woman has to live hers selflessly or else she will be called selfish

the female selling coffee
was startlingly hot
caught me by surprise
i tried to engage her
but she blew me off
in appropriately hot girl style

I coloured my world today
my hands smeared in pastels
canary yellows
ripe peaches and cardinal ochres
pink from a flamingo sunrise
a passionate cerise

Splashed
an array of feisty blues
a flamboyant turquoise
a topaz tango
a twinkling periwinkle

Streaked it with
beams of gold
contoured lilac smudges
lavender tipped edges
in custard pineapple floats

Splattered emeralds, toned pistachio
fern greens with swift finger strokes.

Tempered it with
muddy crusty earthy browns
rock coloured sandy mounds
reined in royal purple
the sensual blaze of a flaming sunset
the dark indigo of a gloaming sky
agate drops a few
a silver sliver of a crescent new

I coloured my world
with my eyes
my words
my fingers, hands
my hues
....just the way I wanted to

You touched me
You filled me 
You stretched me



You go so deep when you read me

Even deeper when you hurt me

Deeper still when you want me



My body reminisces on the warmth of you

My hands memorized the feel of you

My mind is so full of you