Barry Dempster

Opacity

From “The Stingray Metaphors”

The drama begins with a Latino
X-ray technician asking me to raise
my arms Hey Zeus-like and me wondering
whether she means blessing or crucifixion.
Later, in the thoracic surgeon’s office,
I look out on a silver Lamborghini
in the parking lot, the doc’s escape-mobile
after murmuring things like ground-glass
opacity to patients like me.

I’ve always thought of my lungs as a pair
of leopard seals, graceful where the water
meets the beach with its cozy clattering of stones.

The surgeon carries on with words like spot
and lump, nicknames for twins. Left top quadrant
causes the right one to ache. We’ll keep an eye,
make sure it doesn’t grow.

The organ-donation line on my driver’s
licence implies that one day I’ll simply lift
the bullfrog of my heart from its bony nest,
a mere hop or two from someone else’s
swampy chest. All the blues of my eyes
have to do is fly into empty sockets.
May the polar bear cubs of my kidneys
dive into the everlasting sea of ice.

Any questions? the surgeon lies. I almost
ask him to read me my Miranda Rights,
imagining the Latino technician
again, but this time more angelic.

Nothing is transparent anymore.
The windows of the Lamborghini
are blocked with waves of sun—impossible
to see who’s behind the wheel. Even if
I smashed the glass and ground it with my fists,
I couldn’t tell the difference between
the blood of dread or the blood of hope.

BARRY DEMPSTER

is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently Being Here—the chemistry of startle.