Psalm 146

I was kissed and held
and kissed some more by pretty nurses
before I made it
through childhood surgery
on my rotten left hip.
But my hospital roommate,
Daniel, age ten like me,
died one night after dinner,
eyes fixed, not breathing,
his parted lips
stained red with fruit punch,
our favorite.
Today I limp but live,
and I praise those nurses, their kisses,
and I think of Daniel
when I’m nervous, like now,
in this cold exam room:
waiting, jittery,
alone in a paper dress, one more
indignity among the many,
and who out there will save us?
The expert barges in, all
business and hurry, blurts,
“Your hip is irreparable,
a shattered light bulb,
you shouldn’t be walking,”
which he then proves
with a new x-ray: slapped
hard to a hot white screen, my hip
in pieces, its rubble scattered
across the darkness
in bright bits, a night sky
whose stars flicker:
here now, gone,
no, here, yes here.

Seth Michelson