Two Poems

New Patient Intake Form

In the beginning, there was a window

I pried the blinds to make light
of my losses

I fished my hands into and shattered
the water

What a hook I was

doubled in the beginning

In the beginning                 My mouth

and the gasp upon impact
The skull intact

and the brain increasing
activity where the neurons

didn’t die

Slowly I filled the form

X
X
X

My torso scored in order
of severity

only a diagram

You lose your keys, too, and

believe a tenor sings
in your canal. You wake

one day midday and cannot

snooze the tuba, coiled trumpet,
now accordion flexing

its worm in your ear.

You cause a racket
up and down the building

and into the closet when you fall

as you stoop to lift
your basket of chores.

The door it drummed

on the rail, you relay
to the doctor, though you

could not hear it, or could not

hear it in your left, maybe
it is the right. You say,

I seem still

to be confused, your words
balanced in front of the other

and the other like feet,

so she conveys you
in a tube and says there can be music

if you cannot withstand the pulse.