[from the Crab Sonnets] <br /> <br />They sank a silver zipper in my chest: <br />a foot of snag-toothed staples used to chain <br />the cavity where cancer bloomed its yeast. <br />The lovely morphine drips: I don't complain. <br />I feel aloof; the nurses glide like ghosts, <br />their chat like crinkled cellophane: I sway <br />upon an inner stalk each time I'm dosed. <br />The lights stay on to keep it day all day. <br /> <br />A voice in surplice hints I'm deeply hurt, <br />provisional, as rumored in my blood. <br />My tongue feels bronzed; I try but fail to blurt <br />against demeaning signs of likelihood- <br />a gullet's a hard barter for a cure. <br />I'll bite down hard, disjunctively endure.<br /><br />William F Dougherty<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-zipper/
