Breadcrumb #446

MICHELLE WHITTAKER

The thought of my Grandmother’s death likes to visit
the idea of a Jesus cleaned and dressed after dying

even when the clanging of cymbals or catechisms
against prayer wheels in the brain no longer lay sick.

The thought of an oncologist sketching disorganized nodules
dislikes how sleeplessness does not return the countryside I love

or my family -- who escaped to their own islands
when consuming turned into dire consumption.

The thought of the obeying silence often interrupts
this drinking, this dunderhead, who often masks abdominal pain.

Where I was made born again crawls in-and-out bed --
certain positions seem prone to restless anger.

When loving someone depressed, dying & in self-denial,
deeper the daily routine for creating art -- like a constant

circling around my Grandmother’s bed, who sings
about the imaginary violence of disease,

thinking itself mapless -- or ageless
like a luminary obedience, or the tormented knowing,

when virtue subsumes the blade ready --
soaked clean.

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