Issue 9 – Poetry

Transition states not stasis not static
No longer substrate, not yet product
Highest energy on reaction coordinates
Breaking and making covalent bonds

For a DaTscan
to confirm 
I have Parkinson’s,
I am injected
with a radioactive tracer.

You came alive at dawn, craving speed,
eager to clock time and distance.

I will bundle you in blankets and place you 
on porches in cure chairs to keep you

“Dad, do you know what day it is?”
“Yes, it’s my birthday.”

Sometimes forgetting is willful, even hoped for.
How he carried himself as he walked across the yard,
Between one building and the next.

I pivoted on the balls of my feet,
to not fall off to the left or the right
but to sit me down on the flat part
of the roof.

The man whose wife is having a baby
crouches in his chair like a fetus,
can feel himself kicking.

Like Aspen leaves adrift on yellowed-cold,
we flutter, down from youth – to frailty.

I plan on getting you around the house
as you hobble from room to room
with your right leg bandaged up
and swollen from a recent surgery.

cancer in her bones
cancer in her cage
frantic butterflies
trapped in a rage

The emergency department, a bustling fray,
Trucks backed up in the ambulance bay.
A mother and child, full of fear,
Scared of needles, lots of tears.
So much the child couldn’t understand,
I took a moment. I held her hand.

Twelve ounces coffee 
with skim milk, not whole, then walk
forty minutes flat

Our radio wouldn’t dare blast through my father’s orations;
he’d tote his small son on drug rep calls, navigate back roads, the ultimate detail man.

I watch my mom for signs she’s going to be leaving me soon, even as she’s still here. She looks more fragile. A little more lost. Is she?

Together, we’ll visit our friend
who no longer knows us, and pluck
those pesky little whiskers
off her chin.

There’s nothing as beautiful as a marina at dawn
the clacking of ducks
the sky clearing away
the remnants of a storm

Arctic icebergs are breaking up,
Melting Antarctica airport-runways need new sub,
Strong gales have torn apart buildings, Oops:
Flooding also moved houses like floating cups.