My Daughter Sick in Lots of Light

Gleaming chrome hemostats++Bright lights
Cold lights++Brilliant lights++Lots of sheets

Why do some lipsticks
Have the color of blood
Or the claw marks of a stray animal?

I stood at the window staring at shadows
On concrete++Thinking shivery slivers
Of thought++Inventing things
Like the++throwaway paper thermometer

Or a beautiful nurse’s breasts
The sleet outside went perfectly
With the hissing oxygen
My slouch was familiar
My silence an armada of silent consonants

______________________________

John McKernan is now a retired comma herder. He lives — mostly — in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is RESURRECTION OF THE DUST. He specializes in depleted semicolons and the repair and recovery of derelict exclamation points.