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8. THE BEHEADING
Am tiptoeing
Between the edges of trouble—
Regular miseries on one side
Lofty pickings on the other—
Approaching old trepidations
From the opposite direction—
Going back to where the black pearl
Rubbed pale by the grit of life
Stares at me unblinking.
Across a meadow
Someone frantically waving—I shout
"Don't toss your hands away
Spring is coming anyway!"
Tiptoeing again
This time along a slippery ridge—
A prissy tumble on one side
A steep climb on the other.
In no hurry I balance
The high-wire act by
Plumbing distances between
Pathos and Pathos and
Dream of reaching the other side
Of Aurora Borealis.
*
The sign reads
"Hospital for Misfits."
Having arrived somewhere
I sit down on the bench
By the entrance and wait.
A nurse opens the door says "Next!"
And takes me through endless
Morning-glory blue corridors
Up and down blue stairs to
A blue room where
I am undressed and put to bed.
A blue door opens
And into the blue bliss step in
Two doctors and two assistants
All dressed in white,
On their chalk-white cheeks
Three blue horizontal stripes.
One assistant holds down my knees
The other pulls my hair to lift the chin
And the doctors
Holding a long slick blade between them
Flank my head and pull the blade
Across my neck—
No blood no pain no fuss—
They spike the severed head on a stand
Place the stand at the foot of the bed
And leave the room.
Shocked out of body
Awareness floats to the head
But changing its mind
Settles on the pillow nudging me
To get up.
I get out of bed
Lift the head off the spike and
Press against my bare breasts
A layer of skin
A skull a weight
A corpse's chill—
The head is dead.
I put it back on the stand
And stumble back to bed.
In ceremonial step
People dressed in white
Skin painted white
File in.
The first in line stops
In front of the spiked head and
Back turned to me he or she
Does something to it
Then steps aside.
The next in line takes his place
All proceeding in like manner
Each doing something to the head.
The last in line turns around and
In a ceremonial strut
They leave the room.
At the foot of the bed
An abomination:
Hair cut short
Frizzled white,
Skin painted white
Lips stitched together
Eye sockets ringed blue
Inside the blue
The raw pink of pain.
Three short blue slashes
Across each cheekbone
Underscore
A stifled scream.
The operating team returns—
Assistants hold down the body
The doctors lop off my legs
Below the knees and
I am told to stay in bed
Headless and legless
For as long as it takes.
Oh how cozy how endearing how
Welcome the blue silence
How far
The ridicule of light!
The bliss however does not last—
Someone puts the legs on the covers
And now Mother Nature swaggers in.
Dressed in layered bulging
Water-stained wind-tattered rags
Dreadlocks puzzled into a nest
She picks up a severed leg
Shoves it under the covers
Pulls out a needle already threaded
And with fingers stiff with age
Eyes turned up in boredom
Starts sewing the dead skin
To live skin.
Did she pick up the right leg?
Did she put it in the right position?
I ask
"Why don't you lift the covers
And see what you are doing?"
Visibly irked
Mother Nature retorts
"I've done this for so long
I needn't see what I am doing!"
This said
She shoves the other leg under the covers
Blindly stitches it in place and
Having run out of thread
Fastens the severed head to the neck
With one stitch only.
The job finished
Mother Nature leaves the room
Without once looking at me.
Left alone
I get out of bed alright
But cannot stand upright—
The cut bones do not butt
They slip inside the skin—
I stand tall one minute short the next—
Wobbling staggering
In fits of laughter and tears
I know this is exactly
How it is supposed to feel—
Yet no one had ever told me
Not a word was ever said that
Extremes instruct the wits—
And now my own lips are sealed—
Who will ever believe me that
Extremes are the only means
Which means
That only laughter and tears
Have the power to heal—
Below my knee
A thread-thin red line pulses—
I put my finger on it and
A droplet of blood appears
Another wells up—blood
Warm blood trickling down
Real blood
The assurance I needed.
*
Numbed
Trusting my hands and feet
I stagger into a white-on-white garden.
Pass a tree laden with golden apples
A casket filled with gems and
Hearing water sing to itself
I stop at the well of miracles.
There
A shadow of a shadow bends over
Re-arranges things on the ground
The breath of Death on my face—
Were I to quench my thirst
At the well of miracles
I'd be blinded for good.
Were I to fill my pockets with gems
I'd be shackled to want forever.
And were I to pick a golden apple
Gold outside this garden
Would tarnish.
A flash of red made me look back—
One red apple—it holds seeds—
Seeds hold promises—
Bushels of marvels ripening!
Apple in hand
I leave the garden by a path
That stretches before me.
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