poem xi.

when i get to the lab,
all the technicians look at me tiredly like,
oh, no, you again
as if no time has passed since august 2007
since what my doctor cheerfully refers to as

The Summer of a Thousand Bloodtests

since that september when my hematologist called
at the end of it all, when he sounded so sad

so sad
that i had to listen to the message three times
before my beating heart was calmed

but here again, jemima says, as if the streaked grey
in her hair is no new miracle

claire, don't faint
here, hold my hand while i
only a few vials

night's fallen somehow then
and i
wake from an accidental nap
feeling woozy, unreal
to a text about snow and this approaching saturday
and i think

twilight-zoned

maybe this really is
The Future

when i come downstairs,
mother tells my brother to
put the car away because of the snow

he drives it sideways
parks it in the middle of the lawn
and runs

last year, instead of bringing a load of trash to the dump
he arranged it, smirking,
around a piece of old lamp in
a rusted metal bucket out near the road

one of the pretentious family friends arrived for tea
and complimented us
on our new lawn sculpture

"you have such impeccable taste," she told my mother