a finding place

There was once a very great American surgeon named Halsted. He was married to a nurse. He loved her - immeasurably. One day Halsted noticed that his wife’s hands were chapped and red when she came back from surgery. And so he invented rubber gloves. For her. It is one of the great love stories in medicine. The difference between inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love. When I met Ana I knew: I loved her to the point of invention.

he was my first act of godhood body resurrected from un -speakable places to be mine

Imagine, when a human dies the soul misses the body, actually grieves the loss of its lost hands, and all they could hold. Misses the wanting lips, the searching tongue, the throat closing shy reading out loud on the first day of school. Imagine the soul misses the weather of the chest, the hard weather when love storms away. Misses the stubbed toe, the loose tooth, the funny bone. The soul still asks, “Why does the funny bone do that? It’s just weird.” Imagine the soul misses the tears and the thirsty garden cheeks. Misses how the body could sleep through a dream. What else can sleep through a dream? What else can laugh? What else can wrinkle the smile’s autograph? Imagine the soul misses each falling eyelash waiting to be wished. Misses the wrist screaming away the blade. The soul misses the lisp, the stutter, the limp. The soul misses how hard the eyes fought off history to see clearly, to see the holy bruise blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound’s side. When a human dies the soul scours the universe searching for something blushing, for something shaking in the cold, for something that can scar, scours the universe for patience worn thin, the last nerve fighting for it’s life, how badly the voice box ached to be heard. The soul misses the way the body would hold another body and not be two bodies but one pleading god doubled in grace. The soul misses how the mind told the body, “You have fallen from grace.” And the body said, “Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse. There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince, that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger.” Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness, rage, the fist that was never taught to curl — curls, the teeth that were never taught to clench — clench, the body that was never taught to make love makes love like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave. The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin that no longer fits. The soul misses every single day the body was sick, the NOW it forced, the HERE it built from the fever. Fever is how the body prays, how it burns and begs for another precious day. The soul misses the way the body inflamed to hold its own loneliness. The soul misses the legs aching up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed up the vocal chords to curse the wheelchair. The soul misses what the body could not let go, What else could hold on that tightly to everything? What else could see hear the chain of a swing-set and fall to its knees? What else could touch a screen door and taste lemonade? What else could come back from a war and not come back? But still try to live? Still try to sing a lullaby? When a human dies the soul moves through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how a wound would heal given nothing but time. Do you understand? Nothing in space can imagine it. No comet, no nebula, no ray of light can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame. The fingertips pulling the first gray hair and throwing it away. “I can’t imagine it,” the stars say. “Tell us again about goosebumps. Tell us again about pain.”

– and I shall think of you / Whenever I am most happy, whenever I am / Most sad, whenever I see a beautiful thing. You are a burning lamp to me, a flame / The wind cannot blow out, and I shall hold you / High in my hand against whatever darkness.

I white-knuckle sparrows to firework your dark streets. For you, I would soup myself in sea & give up flesh to fill your belly. What I feel for you burrows itself in earth. For you, I would chew gold inscriptions to soften the stutter in your throat. What I feel for you invents the language of softness. For you, I would build a mountain & no ice would stay. What I feel for you melts everything to air.

I’m saying your name on the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal covered with frost, your name like a music that’s been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud, a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails in wind and the slap of waves on the hull of a boat that’s sinking to the sound of mermaids singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple profound sadness when it sounds so far away.