Welding Torches

“Bones like fairy dust,” they said.

Stress fractures in the vertebrae; a fibula

that took two years to heal; two

bone marrow transplants.
The angel of death

hovers, beats his hummingbird wings,

darts in for little sips of nectar

with his hypodermic bill.

The wind comes off the snow

at four in the morning: the dog

shrugs in her sleep. Stars are swung up

by invisible hands, like toddlers

shrieking for – joy? – fear? – and the morning

builds slowly underground.

When I tell her she looks good,

she shrugs. “If you still have your hair,

people figure you're not sick.”

Her eyes glance at me for a moment

before they turn aside.

I cradle her feet while you

speak softly to her, five feet away,

a thousand miles away, where the stars

burn like tiny welding torches; where

they are building something in the night sky –

something sightless, infinitely complex.

I look up to see the tears come in your eyes:

all of our stories

are converging. The stars

run down your cheeks: this

is what flickers on the dark steel

rising in her nights.