Organs Of Donation

After Emphysema


I.

It was a collective voice
we demanded of ourselves.

Something resonant, that echoed
against the cave walls.

We made a den of our bedrooms,
all four of them dimly lit.

We brought in fans, and tiled
our walls with brick and crepe.

Plato’s Cave networked
like sea caves, so we always knew.

What each of us was thinking
or feeling, each an evensong.

“Eventually, the ravine is never deep
or surreal enough,” Donovan said.

Or we were standing too far
from the outcrop or ridge.

Or we had shouted over each other,
adopting all the wrong angles.


II.

Or the wind was selfish, just carried
our voices, far away from us.

The romantic swirl of last year
no longer heady.

These days seem more daunting,
with your impending arrival.

The past remained like an afterthought,
even in its embellishments.

It remained
like some astrological forewarning.

Aloof, against a star
and its movement across a constellation.

About how today will bring about
a decision of dilemmas.

About tomorrow being more forgiving
and chancy, more efforted.

About us accommodating ourselves
to every whim of fate.


III.

About the month to come,
and how I should think about love.

And buying a lung,
and sticking to the plan.

And giving something back
as if life were a series of gifted moments.

Do I know what my father thinks of himself
or a child’s death, even if it was so long ago?

Does memory have the same resilience
as history?

Does a love letter have the same transparency
as the memory it echoes?

What is the measure of my empathy?
There is not the intrusion in the small things.

The noticing glance or irreverent stare.
Nor is there the tedious recollection.

“There must be a lobe of a lung somewhere,”
Evan said, leaning in on Donovan.


IV.

Of an empty playground,
the living room looking unoccupied.

Its airless space recognizable
in every room these days.

The lounge in the library,
the corridor with its doorless thresholds.

The row of pews in the hilltop chapel,
the dug-out cave.

Its right side facing the setting sun,
the sun a shiver of light.

We pulled our leftovers out
from Evan’s rucksack.

Four egg tarts squashed into one corner,
pastry collapsed into the custard.

Like a bread pudding.
My hand pried open one side of the box.

Soggy cardboard, as the rest of the box
caved in like a house.