hail mary

The baby pictures
hanging in black and white
at your bedside,
seemingly miles away
as the symphonies of infusions
and respirations keep death at bay.

The sanguine seeping has stopped
if for a moment.
The sirens of the monitors have ceased,
giving your healers
some peace, and some time to contemplate,
the march of pulseless arrest.

Yet all I can feel,
is the continuous pounding
in the silence of my mind,
and the sensation of your body
beneath the weight of my hands.

I looked into your eyes
as I forced your breast
in reverse
to move the stagnant blood
once again.

I felt your arm brush my thigh
as it weightlessly fell towards earth
under the cantor of the compressions,
as I counted the beats in my head
hoping for a moment
that you were going to sit up
and ask me to stop.

Yet as I peered once again
into the vacant hollow of those orbs
I knew the beat must go on
and the code must continue.

Laying in the darkness now,
prayer comes, with sore muscles
and swollen joints,
Hail Mary,
that my hands
resting over your heart
moved mountains.

For as I peer
into the newborn face
in black and white,
I hope God heard my cries
and the beat of my hands
knocking on your heart
to say hello.

solace to the cavalry

Bring solace to the cavalry,
slow the hoof-beats,
labor his breathing
and turn the crimson of his blood cold.

Hands once strong
taming the beasts of sport,
the soldiers momentum
carried on the backs of phantom ponies.

I watch your life:
swollen and bloated
the skin's metamorphosis
evolving from mustard to eggplant.

Sergeant I cannot stop this!
What has begun when the crown
breached into the light of earth
yellow now in the presence of the son.

Go now with the young men
twisted and wrecked in the desert,
into the solace of the woods,
where your stallions bask.

Exhale and expire my dear soldier,
you have served well and strong,
for I would not be at you side
to help you dislocate from this acrid world
had you not made the ultimate sacrifice.

May solace come soldier,
when as death looms near
that comfort will infuse the heart on your son
who awaits your coming peace.