I'm lying on my back and, looking up,
Note, suddenly, a scene. Is that a cloud
Or mist that leads the traveler from the road?
No matter now. The mind tries to escape.
There's nothing vague about the gel, the quiet
As she tries to read the tangle of my cysts.
It's hard to penetrate these lumpy breasts.
The smiling Snoopy clock will watch her do it,
Not me. I'm looking at another world.
Heaven? Maybe just what we can't have,
But peaceful anyway because it's pure.
You're all set now, she says, the page a field
Of what's been handed back as my reprieve.
What draws us upward helps us to endure.