Final Drafts

For those interested, here are the final drafts of the poems I'm turning in today.  Thanks so much to the many people who read it and provided input.  I heard several people attempted to comment and for some reason the comments never showed.  I can't figure out why that is, thank you for your thoughts, regardless of if they showed up or not.  Also, for those who are able to comment, my teacher suggested I change the last stanza of Pain, let me know what you think (even though I can't change it for the final), I can't decide if I like this ending better or the original.

The MRI 

Clear black plastic film

taped to kitchen windows.

Sun light filters through swirling grey matter

and darker, rigid lines of sturdy skull,

illuminating bisections of you.

The sun comes through each picture,

barely brightening the room and

casting shadows, bent and distorted

around the legs of the table and chairs.

In the twisted images

I think I see an elephant.

You find a cow

and name it Betsy.

Our abs ache and we lean

on one another to stay standing.

“Pass me the tape.”

I grab another black and grey image,

to cover the last corner

and we continue to ignore the

bright bleached blotches,

cancerous lumps,

which stare ominously

from the black plastic.

Pain

Winter hits,

again and

again.

After each

sun burst,

which sweeps

the sky

a bright blue

and persuades

me to believe

in summer,

I awake

the next day

to grey.

My heart sinks

with my feet

into black water,

gathered in

small rivers along

slippery streets,

a frigid pulp,

agitated by

passing cars.

The first

November week,

how the

cold air slaps

my cheeks

and bits

my toes

and gnaws

into my ears,

grinding like

childhood ear

infections.

And each

December gust

threatens to

shatter me

like the icicle

that has lost

its battle with

gravity and,

at the

end of its

long fall,

finds only

hardened earth.

I don’t shatter,

I only crack

along my lips

and the once

soft skin

around my

fingernails

till I bleed.

I step again

into January wind;

my fingers

now numb,

my feet

forever frozen

and I slip

on the ice

and fall,

face first,

into the snow…

and feel

nothing.

The cold crawls

into my bones,

leaving me numb

and sense-less

until summer

returns and

offers joy,

but the sun

must first melt

away the ice

that replaced

my soul,

until it

leaks, slowly,

from my

eyes.