Rachel Blum: The Night of her Diagnosis

The night of her diagnosis
I dreamed her white spiral
like a small galaxy
that rose away
from the hospital gurney
and turned back only once.

With a face like the monk’s face.
Its jagged stones of a riverbed
with water washing over them
like a love that crosses
the constellations
as a secret planet

to something personal like this loneliness.
Whose magnet is strongest at twilight.
As if an astronaut’s life
had been mine and really I
was torn from the ship
and floating among stars
with home a distant blue glass.
—

Copyright 2017 Rachel Blum. From Rachel Blum’s book of poems, The Doctor of Flowers, forthcoming from 3: A Taos Press.

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Rachel Blum