Dawn after clerking overdoses,
in the night, we paused the pouring
of grief to let thunder pass
until we could hear
the rain fall and fall again.
I could have been a deer
on the edge of a clearing,
senses so keen I was trembling.
A soil loosed scent rushed
me and the sky was too big to pretend.
The truth is I am as damned
and blessed as them, would be mad
to say other, though my notes
are a different telling.
In my night, I made a story
of that night and cried
that I catch this self so seldom,
Its bronze back dipping into the trees.
Somehow, I stitched the listening wound
and pulled myself up the stairs
to the blue light of your body.
© Daniel Racey, reproduced with permission.
The poem received a Commendation in the 2014 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.
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