Edahrline Salas Unfurled loosened, I can breathe now without distress like an asthmatic cured of its too frequent suffocations, inhaling a free wind free of desire, just a potent drive to run, to fly, not to flee but to try in a different language not to sigh to plunge into the promise of being unclaimed without stakes, without the incessant need to hold on, to wait, to break and to stop to be rescued, now released, the run is swift, the run exhilarates like the joy of a second chance, the promise of a ribbon unfurled. The Shore The first time he hit me, I fell In love with the memory, I stayed. Widen The space underneath widens, softens as clay under water-- divides with no eruption. Smooth resolve denies the incursion of relic malice. An infancy awakened by recognition of sinister shadows suspended to commit the next interruption. An infancy awakened by recognition that certain times require a widening by contraction. Charlene I didn’t know I had her in me all along the quiet I could not bare to think to stand that slow, haunting pause that calls so softly for me to reclaim her, to forgive her the voice calm as languid afternoons by the lake, sitting on the grass without laughter without tears, just so--- assured in its place settled as beginnings are… Phantom Pain sensate. the silence haunts like vengeance drives to exhaustion what the unfeeling give no notice to but with her brittle text of lies unconscious of history she can only live in the certainties of noise and like madness herself searches for this phantom pain past the boundaries of the skin an ear to the ground listening for escaping whispers to direct the loss to place it where vision can monitor its conversions Occlusion the intravenous pump’s alarm goes mad it’s come to this recoiling between fury and need (I can’t escape) the machine’s nauseating then trancelike bouncing peal uttering its compromised desire to haunt me through passages and corridors into sick rooms of wires and tubes, harnessing outcomes into measurable designs (there is no hiding place) an incident report must be filed after infiltration to notify proper minds to manage risks for next time documenting because, perhaps, of inattention, that recklessness and neglect how the flow was checked how the fluid third spaced (in between) the pressing mood consolidating into ice in time, burning in its nearness the offering driven by guilt little wings drawn like shadows on dark skin memory, fantasy, and now compete to displace faith        altered songs: (I miss you though I’ve met you I miss you though I know you) I can’t imagine us holding each other again sleeping turn for turn (that terrible shock) our bodies moving sympathetically just a body you say? complete with functions diminished by former thrills sutured wounds, such keepers of loneliness disfigured by an exploitable desire to fend off hunger pains I could not discriminate and in an error of changes I began to deny the lack, so I come to being formed by a distressing need to continue but how could I? a sense of humiliation prolonging this pressing mood blood sugar: sickly sweet (need) to block the hunger pains beat by beat love without knowledge most sweet Without Distance Equal, mullioned lives of no importance how can one ration love? as if the decision is not entire but rather too agile, too calculated, then too tired like washing away colors and replacing them with drab hues to lose I still cannot bring myself to get close, too close so I don a yellow gown, a pair of white gloves and a paper mask to isolate, to keep away I dare not touch for fear to learn of its reality, the death of a child, only two a specimen of suffering of labored breaths of febrile restlessness everyone gathers to launch a prayer for release bonded by congenital anomalies it could never have been helped the shadow of a final parting sending all vital signs of life askew the withering comes fast until the small hands no longer burn I keep asking why, in my time, in my care, do you now give up? the busy preparations of wrapping the body of doors opening and closing give a kind of false fantasy of life narrating another reality the movements, an infinite regress, a curtain recoiling upon itself now the stilled agitation of a life