The vending machine contains its

small grief, too.


At the oncologist’s office, my bones are seen

from a bird’s-eye view:

an inexact sweet trap. A car horn in a tunnel.


I lament along with the shopping carts.

They are the only ones at home


at the end of the world—saying


it’s safe now to come out

and to drift weirdly away.

I discover


I can still make love. First the zipper then the sound

of the zipper


and every second in between meaning:

I am five miles further from the moth trapped

in my X-ray.


Don’t we amputees

have such a gentle way of saying goodbye—

banging


on your chest softly with our heads?


I am the last pair of bright headlights mowing through deer.

God hatches a plan and then another.