______Wanting to escape rule and wall,
he searches in the northern wood
for the one wild, true thing
he can never name.
Then, like a lightning bolt,
blood erupts –
drowning the left side of mind,
the side that spins our stories.
No longer oblivious – his word –
he becomes quick to cry
and grateful for the right brain’s
link and flow.
Brothers laugh together now,
a signature laugh that sounds
exactly the same
coming from each chest.
______Another bleed leaves him
wheelchair-bound.
The heart of his mother’s ghost
quickens.
With his right arm, he drags
his hampered form through
the lake, edged by the forest
he once walked.
With a left hand softened from disuse,
he caresses the forehead
of his blue-eyed grandchild, sleepless
from a dream of him dying.
______Another burst vessel
– would he call it a stroke of luck? –
frees him of the cage
a body can be.
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