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Calcification
by Rob LittlerThere is talking and there is listening
And there is pretending. I see the bone in her
Raised arm as stone with my X-Ray eyes.
I remember an insidious scene prior:
“Marble is the obvious choice!” She thundered.
Obviously. But the pressure and heat are
Invisible just like what’s really killing her.
Bilateral calcification of the basal ganglia,
Deposited over time, amounts amounting
To nothing until they mean the difference
Between functions functioning—and everything.
Tissue is hardening, vessels inside her
Skull are getting thicker. “I’m turning into the crag,”
She says into the mirror, which is where she looks
These days when she talks to me when she’s scared.
“You are the escarpe. Its softer and sounds like Italian
Or French. Besides a crag looks and sounds like a hardened shit—
That outcropping resembling lava flow once
Under water longer than long ago, now touching
The rarefied sky positioned above sea level.”
“Autosomal dominant inheritance,” the doctor says
Like it should mean something to me. The look in my eyes
As she says the name of her disease, mimics her whisper.
I am thinking that all these years asleep did no one any good.
Dreams felt and long forgotten are like water
Percolating into sandy soil, the movement is
Massive—unseen to such wakeful sleeping.
This is our layer of sediment, our limestone
Quarry—this marbled calcite sheen began
With alabaster shells and will end in magnesium
Saltwater. Pink Dolostone is the metamorphosis of our hearts,
While Black Calcite is what we’ll need in abundance.
08/12/2016 Posted on 08/12/2016
Copyright © 2024 Rob Littler
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Johnny Crimson on 08/16/16 at 12:51 PM "the movement is Massive—unseen to such wakeful sleeping."... High praise for this, and the whole damn piece is magnificent. |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 08/16/16 at 11:58 PM "This is our layer of sediment, our limestone
Quarry—this marbled calcite sheen began
With alabaster shells and will end in magnesium
Salt water. Pink Dolostone is the metamorphosis of our hearts,
While Black Calcite is what we’ll need in abundance." On becoming a statue, and doesn't the marble seem perfect. Such an elegant expression of this grave dilemma. Thanks for sharing. |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 08/19/16 at 01:05 PM Really like what you've done here Rob. Excellent combination of Earth and Humanity. |
| Posted by Laura Doom on 08/23/16 at 11:40 AM Impossible to sleep through this. |
| Posted by Johanna May on 01/08/19 at 12:33 AM Autosomal dominant inheritance: we can only hope it stops in our sons and daughters, this fallible body can only hold hope enough for those we value above else, sometimes we take none for ourselves. |
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