There was a man who was swallowed up
by a mole on his chest.
First he shrank, then he was drawn in,
and then he vanished into a jungle of blood.
No one heard from him for many months.
When he returned, his friends came for him
and he recalled them at once, but found himself
unable to respond to their questions.

Inside, he knew he was still missing.
Cancer is not a country you come back from easily,
he tried to explain, and they soothed and patted him until
he was nearly sick again.

Spring's a mistake, he thought.
It's wasted on the ones
with easy lives. I want the green for myself,
all for myself.

It's a myth that suffering always makes us noble.
It's a myth that suffering always makes us love more deeply.
There's only one solid truth in suffering: that it hurts,
that we disappear into it and we can never entirely explain
what it meant to be there, and what it meant to come out.

He dreams of the red jungle most nights and many days.
Every dark spot on his skin looks like a river's mouth,
a point of fear to be wary of.
He is wary of them all. He is wary of re-entry.

But there are times when he almost wants to go back --
back to when he lived by hunting for the exit,
swimming for days awash in panic
but fierce and alive because he knew then what he wanted:
the green for myself, all for myself,

and now that he has it, he has to share it,
and he doesn't know what that could mean.



No Giants

The way my chest burst open
to reveal snakejaw ribs
and release a whirling, rising heart
was fabulous enough;

but when the enormous hands emerged
and a rough old man
the apparent size of a nimbus cloud
hauled himself out to stand over me,

I was impressed.
An old woman followed, smaller and more grim,
and stood with him. It was not surprising
when my open body iced over in their shadow.

I was so empty, and they were so
tangled in each other and their expanded world
that they returned nothing to me, while that heart I mentioned
had flown somewhere I couldn't see.

When the giants moved off, arm in arm,
it was my job to pick up something close at hand
and make it beat the way the old one did. I closed myself and
woke into the next life: no giants, no crowd inside.