'First It Is Taken Away From Me' by Richard Tillinghast

And now I am home again.

I can sit out in my pyjama bottoms,

                                       two cats sprawled

belly-down on the warm deckboards

                                  to converse with

the Saturday after Father's Day.

The air is saturated with moisture

as a rum cake is with rum.

Like a tourist, like a slow boater,

                        like a firefly past the solstice,

I hover and scull and wobble

through these haunts and currents and air-pockets—

the day's emptiness

            radiant in the hollow of my spine.

Of the hospital I remember only:

Dry mouth, icy feet, rough dreams.

Nausea of waxed linoleum

down a hall the gurney ran along

                        at scaresome speed.

The gabble of television sets,

and low voices leaking through half-closed doors.

The graph of the monitor repeated, repeated, repeated.

Burgundy velvet like the robe of a grand vizier,

the clematis blossoms like big sagging stars

                                                          or moonfish

soak light in and collapse it into their mystery.

The clematis plays Juliet on her balcony,

bosoming out into moonlight,

ripe with the desire to be known,

giving herself, wishing to taste and be

permeated by the world,

              as if she had never breathed air till now.

That's how it is with me,

                         wing-shot and hampered as I am,

idly rubbing the IV tape marks off my arm.

First it is taken away from me,

then it is given back.