I do not like to leave parts of my body behind
somehow it feels unfair and
it tastes bitter
like the white powder that coats the pills which contain the drugs

relegated insensible by these prescribed chemical stupifiers

despite their work
it never leaves the tip of my tongue nor the back of my mind

the name of my limb

______    ________    


but my limb, for it is not currently a

scarcely dangles vertically

I move like a seasoned pirate with the grace of a forklift—

almost like the last phase of man from the Sphinx’s riddle

blood metamorphosing my toes into pomegranates
whenever I wait for the teapot to boil

like the serpent I am mandated a horizontal experience

my head, my heart, my body forming a halcyon plateau
and the beautiful people around me are

mountains with snowy peaks

kaleidoscopic clouds

purple rather than blue

my limb suspended in the alpine air wedged between two jagged cliffs
but unlike my old tent and tarp, the seems are not bursting
sinuous threads of flesh resolutely committed to undo the doctor’s deed

covered with the mineral deposits that conceal the buried dinosaur bones

cold like the side of the moon we never see

and in the imposed blindness the threads throb harder then any music I can think of playing

erratic electric pulses turning my veins into squirrel’s tightropes

my body’s compartments greedily absorbing the concentrated stimulus

that reflects back from my tenaciously healing limb

until the faintest beat calls my name and my heart and limb become one

as the plateau that was my cradle

now becomes fertile enough for roots