Twelve Gates

Strict and bound 
as an analog watch, 
Aristotelian narrative 
calls for a probable
necessary sequence. 

It is suicide season.
The calendar taunts 
with year three’s death dance. 

Dialysate swills 
in my abdomen. 
Long arrows of surgery 
nudge under my ribs
            trace my hipbones 
                        garland my navel. 

Along my lower back 
divots of biopsy
freckle into sickles 
when I bend over. 

Driving over the city bridge 
quirk or quark humming
            I might be spared.

My grandmother loved
singing O What a Beautiful City 
as she sorted her pills.

The anesthetic mask
shatters linear discipline:

            Trotting the deep path by mosslight, 
            son is a dark-haired universe 
            in the crook of my right arm. 
            Five pound blood-hum
            prayer and verse ripping 
            my skull pure off.
            Time has me scalped
            kissing the whorls of my brain 
            with frank red lips. 

Rolling up from surgery
I look down to my wrist
where someone has clasped 
my watch on loosely.