All The Broken Sunrises _ by me #3 (of a series)

[AlbeitDying]

Part One

Chapter :

Two

The day after father left me in bed till dusk,
when the sun’s rays had penetrated
through greater things than concrete and cloth,
Dr. Jacobsen again paid me
the fares of attention and companionship.

The balled end of a thermometer
was on the stand beside me.
Still warm if touched, its dial could read
no more than one hundred and ninety degrees,
yet it was that very limit
the heated dose of mercury shrank from slowly
as it regained the room’s mid-October chills.

Dr. Jacobsen knocked at the door and made –
at my indifferent grunt of approval –
twenty paces in from the doorway.

“I am Dr. Jacobsen.”
[In a way of secondary introduction,
to strengthen a hypothetical friendly bond.]

-Yes, I know who you are.
[In a way of irritation,
to obliterate such attempts of bonding.]

-Your father spoke of me?

-No.
it is my habit to listen in at the door
when a call careens his way.
I know you,
you are the black doctor:
messenger of death.

-I bring not news;
I export in place of return.
Your father, the kind Mr. Faust –

-Do not dub him kind!
Be it owing to the salt bestowed upon your breast
or for humbleness!
There is no man with blacker leaves,
fruits more bitter,
a stem further on principle of the aged bell-ringer…

-… Yes. Our meeting previously was unsettling,
I’m sure.
Shall they begin anew?

More at ease on speaking terms
of his choosing, he began questioning.

Indifferent to all as by depression,
I took the leave to clear my head.

“What have you?
What of your condition
do you know?

-I have problems.
I am going to die.

-Why is that?

-My heart bears fruit where it musn’t:
a grape the stability of stone
where space must hold.

-Does it hurt?

-Does it hurt he asks!

-…Sorry…The tumour… I am told
anesthetic is among the ingredients
of your meals.

I swallowed a glob of salivated whimper,
which shot up at the touch of his conceptions,
before proceeding:

“…I must hurt.”

His sight cut
the tremors of emotion
swathing my face.

His hand met his chin
and the first massaged the second
with absent thought.

“How do you fear?”

-I fear with the great known
and the little unknown.

-How do you love?

-I love with sentiment
the eyes and hands of brethren.

-How do you fall?

-I fall with the parting yearn
of dusk and dew
into the abyss of space.
I hit the cauterized wound
and bleed the atrophied body.

-Must you hurt?

-I must for without hurt
one cannot taste the scent of the foliage.
Without hurt
one cannot run the field
and stumble to meet the brush.
Without hurt
the agony is left to game and soul.

He tucked his hand
from chin to pocket
and left it there.
I took the tired breath
and he the complexion of my chest.

"Is it black in the dome?"
hollow for the bone?

-It is as tar and ice.
The lighter bone of bird.
The burden of gold, in shape of a world,
in place of a heart.