I am sorry

Young Woman with Epilepsy, I Am Sorry


You are out in the ether. Your head thumps
the hospital pillow, your arms across the hospital tray.
Dust rises like snow in reverse. Dust:
all the pieces that have flaked away.

In the past the doctors would have consulted spirits
would have smeared goat's blood over your forehead.
Now they've brought you here to the fluorescent,
sterile room, laid you in this pneumatic bed,

pinned diodes to your temples—to observe you sweat
and shiver and moan, to watch you set fire to your spirit,
and eventually climb out.
But as they monitor you, you are out searching

in your tremor, full of the same vigor that makes thunder
open its throat, you are out there, passing through pools
of white light and white heat.
If only you could know how electric you are.