This is hell, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, the aide, get her out of here, for good, not her, please, I’m desperate, please, please, please, please Alex, I love you.

—My memory of my father’s message

 

Our cell’s wheels
————are beyond greasing,
speak three real MD’s.

————Species are squeezed
dry: think ice
————wheezing in water.

Needles weaved from green
————cactus thorns sleep in weavers’
graves, but the weavers cease,

————no matter how we plead geese
to V us with. Decrease
————suits us, steeps us, even

deep-sea cod with antifreeze
————for blood. Doctors can only
spreadsheet our time-lapse

————of shed, their eyes fleeced of
leaves, not a wingbeat
————left of “I love you.”

 

 

Alex Chertok