Diagnosis
       

What a hidden memory is electricity,
lonely as an unflipped switch,
fetal as hope inside a camera.
In a dream a doctor scrawls
the syndrome erasing vowels
from our ventricles.
We pull the staple
from his tally like a splinter,
scrambling the ink
into tanks of oxygen.

Waking breaks the bulb
over our head with wet eyes
and underwear. Scan our face
for blood and filament,
our impossible birth
precedes us.
How did we get here?
Medicine swerving the molecules
in our body like a one clock.
We ferment inside a hush
that's louder than disco.

Oh Hester, they cut letters
out of our dresses now
before they sew the final A—
they pin the missing shape to our skins
until our skins remember
who's missing. Grafting
teaches an orchard to pretend—
heavy fruit only
makes it seem
to bend.

Copyright © 2009 Brent Armendinger All rights reserved
from Undetectable
New Michigan Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission