—POOR OLD JOHNNY RAY, SOUNDED SAD UPON THE RADIO

                                                   Uh Huh

         I am always tied to the slip, tethered to the bleached ether.

         Storms sway me, have their way.  Hail pellets peck my forehead like Mother’s forefingers.  Think!  Think for once, you dunce.  Think!

         Every cog catches and stutters, a moment swamped in molasses, stuck on repeat.

         The doctors enter, like pale, clean smoke with nowhere to rise.

         One smiles, one yawns.

         One leans down and pries my eye lids apart.  “Uh huh.”

         My bandaged wrists itch where the fire still smolders.  My heart murmurs.  The air tries to escape.

         The two docs merge into a single human, no longer smoke.

         “You were really lucky this time,” he tells me, without a trace of irony, or anything else.