Saturday, October 25, 2008

for Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (poet-scientist)



Pale Rider

metallic cloud of anesthesia hanging over
the horse-drawn amnesia of halothane

pale rider
somewhere between

heaven and hell
day and night
birth and death

born back into the light
from this limbo

dead-weight of limbs
saddling a soul to earth
for now

image:
Dr. William Thomas Green Morton's 1846 ether operation
(daguerrotype by Southworth & Hawes)

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