Guillian-Barre Onset

 

What a way to wake up!

One eye was stuck cocked to the side

like a cartoon character who gets whacked

in the head with a frying pan.

Regardless, I went to the theater and watched

with one hand covering one eye

to see only one screen. A palsy,

the doctor claimed, but be weary of weakness

over the weekend. I got an eye patch

and stayed positive. The weakness came

strong the next day, my cheeseburger

was too heavy to bring to my mouth.

I had to loop my arm around my father

to walk to the car. When I awoke

the following morning full paralysis

set it. I stayed positive and wrote

a haiku in my head which after reciting

to my mother she cried. It read:

Laying sac of flesh,

spirit cocooned within you,

ready to unleash.

 

Nesting

 

Sleeping in a nest; my nest.

Built from Grandma

Morath’s loosely stitched quilt

hanging from the untwisted metal

springs beneath Myles’ mattress

three feet above me in our bunk,

I stripped knowledge off caterpillars

learning how to cocoon:

to take a moments break to stew

or to eat soup, break from tormenting

my brother, break to entertain my family

for the hope of ice cream later.

Maybe to admire the yarn

holding me; a critical trove

full of fantasy.

 

Shooting Star Sonnet

 

Talking future under a blanket at the tables bench,

it streaked like a welders spark over the ocean pulls;

retired for the night were the obnoxious gulls

who in the wind had their claws firmly clenched

to the sleeping rocks at sea.  Like reflections from an avalanche,

it was the first which you could recall;

catching in action a shooting star fall,

and I caught your joy as our bodies flinched.

 

I caught your exhale of wonder, long like a cypress,

I caught your eye glimmer in the moons vigor,

and I caught your tenderness like a virus.

Then, the next shooting star tore space’s black curtain

revealing heaven, we both could figure

that we had caught each other’s love for certain.