The Crab Sonnets Iii Poem by William F Dougherty

A Provisional

The fatigue is iron. Breath strains like pleas
as morphine slips down lucid tubes to ease
a snarl beneath the silver-staple line
frenzied for each dose of cloaking anodyne
to heal the salvaged gullet-stub, at least,
where the carcinoma had spumed like yeast,
but now the gliding nurses scratch on charts
the vital signs of heart—but not both hearts.

Like Ishmael alone, the others I could name
whom assassin of cells seized or maimed
leave me, provisional of wounded time,
their amanuensis armed with only rhyme
to set down for their revenants a page
defying malice with their marrow's rage.