Puncture Wound

I have only these hands,this blood-warm body,the snap of gloves againstaching wrists.Because I cannot takeyour place, I carry silence,heavy as pooled rain.What do you dowhen the wound is too largefor one body to carry?Wound in the present tense.Wound as weapon.Wound as sleeping body,unfamiliar in its stillness.Your face unmoving,anesthetized into memory.I want to saythat rupture can beforgotten—limb by limb,bone by lonely bone.I want to saythat the operatingroom never carriesa sharp angle of light.Instead, I say nothing.I pour day down the drainlike antiseptic, my handshollowed with silence,groping for remedy. Pasttense. I try to makeroom for my grief—it makes room for me.