A porous membrane, swelling around
to welcome the intrusive object
and sketch in chalk basics
of the mechanisms of healing;
            pursues a love affair with the dressing,
            grasps and clings, osmotic
freeway swell salving dirt
into the weeping wound’s lens;
            the species fumbles midway through
            a bad luck run no longer
            to be denied, but what possessed us
to make this stake on chance, unmarked
unexpected offramp where clouds scud
and swag, scab and dangle, grasping
and changing; the flag in the windshield
            is fidelity and petty love, a magnetic
            ribbon supporting overseas manufactories
            and the export of blood death thunder
            shock and awe; I am haunted
by images of dismemberment, evisceration,
wretchedness and deformity. Postmorten Edgar
Poe lies like an angel, skin clear and bright;
at that point the sky no longer browns
eagerly, creamy, but blotches in embarassed
roseate patches, blobs of fractured melanin.