Calling Anne Sullivan

I know what I could hear. I write them down
(the words that end in -oma) in my palm
like Helen Keller. Will I wear a gown
of paper blue? Blue is supposed to calm
my nerves. That’s why these rooms are kept so cold,
to hold our thoughts, but I think still of tombs,
and ice, and deadly things. If I were bold
I’d rise, and keep on rising, like a bomb’s
fat mushroom cloud. Disintegrate this room
with its chill air, its copies of McCalls,
its TV Guides from 1990, June,
its warning posters stapled to the walls.
Instead, as one of this blank timid herd,
I sit and sign carcinogenic words.

Go to Sleep, Anne, Nevermind

Benign. How harmless. But I see the scars
that dimple on my arm. In time they’ll fade
from scabbed lividity, and I can wear
a short sleeved shirt again without the fear
someone will joke that I’ve been in the wars
or pity me, as if a hand grenade
had taken off my feet or burst my ear.
How odd. I sit and worry what to wear
to hide that I’m not dying. Biopsies
may split the wheat from chaff, the sheep from goats
with medical precision, but our skins
will bear the mark of Cain, of bullets dodged.
And even as our terror is dislodged
survivors’ shame still bares our guilty throats.