for Eric Sweet
after his 30th birthday
Now in sunlight rather than darkened morgue,
he pulls from his pouch a child’s artery,
dips it in clear stream, watching clotted blood
weaken, loosen, then wash away. His heart
racing like the stream, he gently squeezes
the frost-gray tubing, marvels at its soft
structure, recalls how last week he had eased
from an old man’s cadaver a like piece
nearly hard as a stick. Now night. His loft
dark as a morgue, he lies alone, his eyes
watching the dead child alive, running and
halting by the stream, then kneeling a while.
He breaks the current in two with small hands.
He sees a man with wings, a woman’s smile.
Roger Armbrust
