Shiva's
Nursing Hum
Between
flabby buttocks and pungeant wilted thighs
ancient
forgotten breasts and an old woman's sighs:
there
is space, yes – there too am I.
Only
3:30 a.m. (she's at it again)
Flooding
her sheets and coughing up phlegm;
I've
changed every thread on her bed just the same . . .
Ah,
glorious decay! This too I am.
But
let me once forget her arthritic hip -
Later
on she “reminds“ me by the knee I wincing, grip.
And
sitting her up in a gerry-chair
I
pass this comb through her passing hair.
See
if this water carressing her throat
doesn't affirm “I
Am You“ -
transformed
to urine or a single tear:
no
matter which, it still holds true.
And
in her tear, her pulse, her glance -
there
indeed behold my dance!
Pan-Handling
Trilogy
I.
My Backs
Slender
limbs rising from twin trunks
Tenfold
and labored peering back like weary elders
From
knuckle to ruddy knuckle
hanging
skin like a pachyderm joint in runny nylons
Slender
but uneven
Patterns
intricately woven through and through.
II.
My Fronts
Bare
side open-palmed smooth and stoic
The
lines etched into sturdy fingers are as telling
As
the creases dividingthe palms by sections
and
intersections
Less
diturbing more reassuring of work offered
with
both hands.
III.
These Hands
Leaning
over siderail
dim
light
radiator's
hum.
These
hands push and roll
a
bony thin-skinned body
to
the left to the right;
Tugging
out drenched cotton square and drawsheet
with one
hand
Slipping
fresh dry and smooth one under
with the
other hand.
These
hands swiftly settle tired sagging form
into
pillowed comfort
and
I kiss the brow
and the cheek
and the eyes
of
that smooth withered face with faint wrinkles faint smile -
Shallow
staccato breath channels through that nose . . .
Three
hours later these nostrils inhale deeply
as
I step out . . .
into
morning . . . air;
their
membrane holds the odor of a hundred bedpans.
MIDNITE SHUNYATA (Bed-toven)
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