Stephen Cramer
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
The 16 inch slash
from his left nipple
around to his backbone
wouldn’t cripple
his style, but
having his chest muscles cut,
his ribs pried apart
so surgeons could root
through artery & bone: that might.
Still, they collapsed
his lung, steered toward
the fist-sized tumor trapped
between his heart
& spine… Dis here
finado, he liked to say
that year,
though it wasn’t over,
not quite: his side
sewn up, his muscles
relearning how to bind
& flex… No stitch could hope
to withhold the manic
grind of Tempus Fugit,
the frantic
laddering of sixteenths,
but what can you say
when you hear those last
records: the way
every fluid & bottomless
run he blows
tests the seams
of those restrung sinews,
some notes amplified,
while others are muffled, caught
in the hole
between his spine & heart.