of Job when her friend died and another
and a third lost an arm in the scissors
of a crash on 94. Of Vegas and Job
in Vegas staring at the odds for plague
or the slaughter of sons and still
placing his money against, when the next
bad piece of news was of her body
turned riot. Thought of cells
going wild, a noise like gypsy moths
buzzing the green hem of the woods,
and listened, the night before chemo
as we sat outside, for the sound of flesh
eating itself. I heard the Morse code
of her knitting instead, a sleeve grew
from this ticking and when I mentioned
the next day, she repaired my manners
with a glare and preserved her own
with a smile. And soon after the ritual
of a cure began, of a dry river
waiting for water, that even the stones
on its tongue are accustomed to a pulse,
even thought I’d hold her hair back
when she rested her face on the toilet,
until in one hand she gathered it
and with the other pushed me out.
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