Susan Daniels Poetry

These are our new churches
where life is declared done
or pulled out squalling
with that first breath forced
with a slap on the ass
and the heart’s calligraphy
is charted for the elect
that can read its flights
in ritual healing
of the celebrants
with shaved heads
and radiation tattoos
waiting for a cure
that kills, but more slowly
than the disease
blooming quietly under skin
(there is a reason
we call them patients–
because they are always
waiting)

these moments, sacred
and shrouded in mystery
are now visible under
fluorescence–
the shadow on the stomach wall
photographed in three dimensions
in color, as our robed high priests
and priestesses
pass flesh off fields, sterile
to the altar of frozen sections

and if that heart pauses
without permission
they will restore its leaping
through paddles
on a chest

and what is more magic than that
giving back life and sustaining it
on machines

For the Panda’s naughty challenge.