A Second Opinion

I told you what was in my heart.

You asked me to prove it, so

the next day,

I brought round the x-ray.

This here, I said, tapping the acetate,

is the shadow cast by a sleepless dervish.

And these lack spots across my left ventricle

are starlings above a collapsing pier.

This mass here

is a hospital lost in a power cut.

And this rather dark abrasion

is a dead fox overlapping an empty wardrobe.

Naurally, you were sceptical, turning the sheet over and over,

holding it up to different lights,

calling in the neighbours for a second opinion.

My monochrome torso went up in the window

and we all started a it from across the room,

as if looking at my very own exhumed grave

a skeleton jammed in a chimney flume.

And I knew that to the untrained eye, the September evening in my chest looked mild.

But I trusted you, implicitly,

to take your coat with you

on the way out.

((c) Ross Sutherland, Verlinkungen von besteh)