4 Ways to Die

1.
In the basement
the gulley     of the hospital
a corner           is tucked

Nuclear Medicine
Hidden away          deep in

to protect the masses
unlike me and those few others who happen to wander
down the wrong

hall of the building

Once trapped no one escapes
without a poke

without a puncture

without being injected              It is said

the amount is small
so small that it can’t harm you  Then why
all the cross bones
and skulls

People walk with IVs

dripping from arms

taped to a wrist  Mine
covered by a stretch cloth
           so as not to make me queasy when seeing  Isotopes run
rapid

through my liver       into my gallbladder
slowly to my intestines  An hour
of pictures and asking

what cells am I losing Is my brain being damaged This stuff can’t be directed
to follow one
path

One way in and nowhere
out       my body absorbing
it slowly  I hear a machine
pumping
like a well
like a heart  while I wonder

who’s trapped in there

2.
Few learn silence
           Through the trap of thorax before sea level;
                 all too many know

silence
           like an inescapable scream.
                                                       Have you kept
silence to
                eat the intestines, the liver,

                           the bronchiole tubes; have you buried

silence in a casket with a face full of fist to be reborn
                  again and again?


3.
Remembering
giant flakes that fall under
a black sky of sparkles

where the moon was blotted

and snowflakes absorbed light

like speckles of aluminous paint
that falls from a wall
the way nature does it            the only way
the way the mind sees
the path from the dog’s chain

to the back door in snow’s dark, and all the while,

while writing this, being buried in the downfall
—the bright                pains my eyes.


4.
a. A thing that he says disturbs me,

churns my insides.
“I’d rather be cleaning stalls,”
as he walks from the kitchen;
“No one cleans up after themselves.”  He told me
when he quit work

everything would change.  Children

would obey and clean.

b. There’s noise coming

from two bedrooms, a living room,
and the dining room—t.v.

or radio, or yelling; children
picking at an arm, a leg,
two dogs nibbling, gnawing, fighting
to be alpha,
a head and my gut talking to me,
but I don’t understand it; often

I can’t hear it—even in quiet.

c. Barium gets stuck

in my chest, and there is no gag
bag, only this cup of thick white
and an aroma lurking of rotten

raspberry, or. . . something; I can’t finish
and they say must.

d. Two grown women

in the same house don’t fit,

and neither do niece and aunt
only a few years apart.  My mouth

agape hearing
“I hate you;”

“You’re ugly,” sharing

dining room, kitchen,

and living room.