Two Poems:

Broken Sleep

Three times a night, I climb from my Percocet
dream — the repetitive reel of
falling — drawn by a flashlight beam into my cold
Wake Island kitchen where comfort
waits in a small white

                                tablet that throws open
the gates of horn and ivory. In bed I feel
barrel staves tighten
around my chest. This is the year the ravening
beast, locked in my rib cage,

                                            breaks free,
stalks the sad moonscape meant to leave me
with one bulletproof breast: a dental
patient weighed down by the lead in an X-ray
vest. The dream is always

                                       the same: blueberry
bush in its bird-netting sash at the rockery
crown. The animal cry piercing
the hush. Stones taking aim at the flung
body parts plummeting down to collect
in a heap on the sidewalk.

The Visionary under the Knife

Unstable as an overturned beetle — left eye prepped
and draped — I lie on the operating
table. On this final day of the year, the surgeon
will remove the identical twin preachers in the one
pulpit by the papal flag and the distant
fire hydrant down the block
that looks like a vicious green dog. The crew

waits for the Nurse with the Knives. Of course
I wear an IV in my arm, tape across
my brow and ankles, terror in my solar plexus.
Team members talk to one another
in low Medicalese: capsulorrhexis. . . paracentesis
tract. . . phacoemulsification. The oximeter
clipped to my middle finger

                                          must be keeping time
with my pulse. Something else: a speculum locks my
eyelids open. If I could clearly see
what everyone else is doing, I would not be
here. Masked faces draw closer. These costumes
suggest a royal ball, a bank heist, a Halloween
party. I dramatize

                           all three. The glass eye of
the operating microscope zooms in
on the surgical field. Dr. Chen makes a stab
incision at the five o'clock
position, perhaps to revise ad slogans, mangled
by weak eyes, on my small TV.
Anesthetic drops allow the doctor to dissolve

the lens in quarters. That's when I issue orders:
Leave the eyelid movies untouched!
They are my favorite show to watch as I'm
drifting into dream. The room fills with jets of
spraying water and ultrasound far beyond
the human ear as the hollow needle vibrates 40,000
times a second. The needle stops. The doctor

inserts a foldable silicone lens, courtesy of
Bausch & Lomb. The surgeon
checks the wound for leaks. More anesthetic drops.
Tomorrow is a new year. Circus colors of falling
stars. Dazzle of meteors from oncoming
cars fades to Seattle gray. Metal patch over gauze
dressing attached

                           to my operated eye. My trusty
gurney-on-standby carries me to Recovery,
body propped high enough to sip my java
and order tardy breakfast.
Time to leave but not the way I came. Doors
swing open on the ever-moving world
always and never the same.

Madeline DeFrees
Spectral Waves
Copper Canyon Press

Copyright © 2006 by Madeline DeFrees.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

REMEMBER TO SUPPORT POETRY DAILY'S GENEROUS SPONSORS... Sponsor PD!