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The obscurantist doctor
replaces the word Death for Life

with a resonance that builds
a framework of immediate

positive reaction,
but changes his tune

like a corruptible
one-man juggernaut,

taking on physical thrills
by ignoring wholly emotional

vulnerability, re-arranging
a room's glee, watching it flee,

& then reporting the real news,
then listening to all the shuddering,

the inner-vaccuum that
spins the energetic wound

of the Moment, like
a burning star, erupting,

unspooled from the cosmos.
& then, like a new gear moving,

there is a bright glow
left in the hospital room

where the loved one's spirit
has left the body: a perfected relief,

a pin-on mise-en-scène
where heart-thumps are assaulted,

left in silence, a memory
like a papier-mâché mask

incapable of being feverish
like family & friends

that eventually resume
their daily routines, a void left

like abandoned railroad tracks,
or like the branches of a fern bush

left bare from the sliding pinches
of a child's unknowing fingers.