Poetry
Chest X-Ray
I tape it to the window, where
I can see right through myself
to autumnal shrubs and a wooden
fence. A volley of turquoise ions
has shown me up for what i am:
calciferous trace of a glorious
experiment: ribs of soluble glass,
the wafer of a driven heart,
lungs no more than wisps of steam
from a phial of improbable being.
That one blueprinted egg, and one
seafaring mote - seed in which I was
contained, and am not contained -
could articulate into such a spine,
my cambered ribs, my sternums keel!
I am the solitary raft my father
built, to carry him into the years
he will not reach, that Ithaca
onto which he can never be washed,
freighted with his failure to live.
Dreading the freedom of his dying,
these remnant bones growing more
intangible than ever, I watch
between the ribs, the darkness,
and beyond that, sunlit leaves.
Dan Wylie
