Chamomile Hammocks
Before you leave
tell me how passion
lingers in miasmatic moments,
a hammock
strung between two palm trees,
and overflows in a touch
like the foaming
of indigo waters.
All we amount to is a first kiss
disoriented
as the color of a sunset
mixed with rain clouds.
Your body warmed me
like chamomile as you slept
in the shape of an “h”—
only your knee touching.
The power cuts off and I can’t get a drink of water
from my fridge because everything is electric nowadays.
The whir of the fan drops its decibel and slows.
SILENCE.
I head to the storage room looking
for energized cells to transfuse an old radio.
I make my way inside but it’s dark. A cold breeze
sneaks by, reminding me of the mornings
I sit waiting to be called, those pale lights of the county
hospital wanting to give out, paying obeisance to the darkness
to assuage all the pain leaning on the walls—
the over-aged folks waiting to be treated
with iatrogenic diseases. But while they have someone
to care for them, I don’t because I’m a newly single,
middle-aged man dying from wedding vows I shoved
up my right aorta yesterday after my lady realized
she’s still in love with a man she no longer knows.
Could I have found comfort hidden in the dark creases
of their faces? Pain – waiting to be blown out like snot
from the nose of a sick toddler – seemed tucked behind their eyes.
A vacuum from the air there that tasted like sputum
and smelled like decay.
In all this ossifying silence my cell phone chimes
and it’s my lady so I power it down.
I hear my doctor’s voice, the diagnosis of a worsening situation:
My kidneys will volunteer first and then my liver,
free-falling into a pool of sickled blood like a dusty ocean
reflecting a portrait of my imperfection.
I shove the batteries in and hear that power is out
all over L.A. and San Fernando Valley. But even
the media’s voice begins to tremble and fade when finally an
engineer lets us know the cause of the black out. “A wire
was cut at DWP headquarters but we’re unclear as to
how that wire could black out two entire count –”
The clinic sign, “hematology/oncology,” flashes in my mind.
Then I see the face of my lady but that goes too as now
even the batteries have given in to the inevitable outage.
SILENCE. I prepare my heart to appreciate it.
BIO: Kevin Franklin is a California native currently residing in Los Angeles. He is working on an M.F.A degree at California State University, Long Beach and has published in Verdad, The Chiron Review, Vulcan, and Rip Rap. His musical poetry often depicts the struggle between spirit and flesh in urban America.
