Rape Kit

I

Not dead, per se. More like Monet's garden              trampled by glasseyes that tower impossibly high like bed knobs              like scepters thatimpale parades of pink & screams of red & I can't              tell one colorfrom the other let alone head from stalk, tongue              from sunkenship, painting from paradise hung softly over my hospital              bed. I pretendI have crawled from the gutters to get here & the gentle              colors burn like neonlights calling darkness into question. I pretend I am              pretending.

              I try to paint myself outside of the gurney                            but have only been given              one shade of blue dye from the nurse's rape kit                            to which I use to blend              the spectrum between here & now. Everything                            inside the box is neatly              arranged like a bouquet of funeral flowers, purple                            posies that once held              so firmly to the earth. Yes, it was more purple than                            blue, the television's alien glow discoloring the couch's leather from black              bible skin to flickeringhymn, chimney lit like a cigarette & while there are              many silver similaritiesbetween the clinic's utensils laid out like cutlery inside              the master's mouth,the policeman's muted badge & the tinfoil smothering              the tv antennaof the man twice my age who was kind enough to wash              my clothes after,

              these are only minor details, creases within the white                            sheet that lolls              over my bed rails like a broken neck, limp as a blue jay                            in the wrong place              at the wrong target, embracing the predawn air like an exposed                            nipple, drawn to the red              center as a single arrow exhales into a cloud of feathers                            prompting one to ask, how              could she not have seen it coming, why didn't she take cover,                            cover herself up?

II

Pointing to the tube of blue dye, the plastic capsharp as the beak of a carrion bird, I askare you going to paint a portraitinside of me? & so I holdperfectly still upon the gurneyso the nurse can capture the jettisonof my eyes off & wandering. Where will I goin waiting? My eyes brush the room in long strokesacross deadpan walls & panoramic hallways,palomino patients trot to & fro in an anesthetic gustnumb as clouds & for a moment I forgetthe canvas of my body is being used tocarefully paint a picture, layers of carnivalpaint atop anthropomorphic renderings, a caricature

to lighten the mood. How elsecan one fill in the blanks, stop up all that silencewith cotton swabs that zig & zaginside me like zebra stripes.I imagine a red tiger stalkingthe nurse's clipboard, eyes hidden insideher handwriting. Likelihood of internalinjury: 100%. Danger lurks insidethe percentage, the o's open wounds,doors kicked in & the train of my bedderailed. The carnival sounds nice. Let us go there

the nurse's blond hair drizzling over her shouldersin a buttery stream, tufts popcorning from the red& white striped paper cap that she dons like a crown.The queen of carnival steam departs her manhole coversto paint me. Should I turn & face it, bowl my eyes downthe narrow lane of my nose & watch the picture show?Should I turn to worldly things to improvemy posture, rest my body atop a pillar& really lean into the history of man precedingarchitecture preceding breaking & entering precedingalarm & what of composure? How to carryoneself into a freeze frame when time is turned uplike a torch & catching fire has become a factof life.

Fire trucks catching fire are a good omen, a causefor celebration like a girl's first period, the cherry blossompassing haiku flowers like clots untilsomething is missing. The nurse doesn't missa single scar. In fact, she can't focus on anything butthe lacerations, the missing monuments of fleshcarved out of my pink walls like a prison tally.There are ways to separatethe body's stein from its half-brewed potion, the daybuttoning & unbuttoning while I slip through a hole [End Page 62...