Unordained Peace

Your heart beats
in irregular angles
under the bed
as I write this
in black—

black like a eulogy

or a funeral procession.

Hospitals are open
24 hours to save
the midnight illnesses—

the insomniac seizures

& blood coming out
in cursive.

You wonder about
my breathing
in the ghost hours—

hitching & curling
in pandemonium—

& how it connects to you,

our lungs tied together
like balloons that bounce
off one another
& create static electricity

in the dream center.

I do not know where
to begin talking about you—

the diaries left behind,

the poems aching
on every page of me,

the goodness stamped
on your heart chambers—
but I'll start with this,

a poem against dying
& leaving us to clutch at
the straws left behind

of a body undone.

Against the illness
wrapping its fingers
around your throat
& squeezing—

the books still unfinished.