When the doctor runs out of words and still

I won't leave, he latches my shoulder and

steers me out doors. Where I see his blurred hand,

through the milk glass, flapping goodbye like a sail

(& me not griefstruck yet but still amazed: how

words and names — medicine's blunt instruments —

undid me. And the seconds, the half seconds

it took for him to say those words). For now,

I'll just stand in the courtyard, watching bodies
 
struggle in then out of one lean shadow

a tall fir lays across the wet flagstones.

Before the sun clears the valance of gray trees

and finds the surgical-supply shop's window

and makes the dusty bedpans glint like coins.
From Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones, Copper Canyon Press, 2016. Published with permission.

We're celebrating the life of Lucia Perillo all December. More details here. Previously: Monorail, "Dona", and "Pharaoh".