Adrift

Henceforth, weigh happiness by the distance
from the oxygen vent;
peace of mind by the reek of a phenyl floor.

Mouth agape, fallen mutely
into dull pain
on a blue-white semi-prone hospital bed,
wires trailing from the chest,
a burnt-out monkey’s tail.
How utterly still she is now!

If one could restore her for a moment more
with purest breath,
wake her from torpor to spit at mortality —
but heaven’s boat has sailed,
its hull heavy with the last weight of her heart
upon the blinking monitor.

Adrift on the wheezing bed,
she is floating afar — without sound,
without making the faintest move.