Anne Rankin
The Illusion of Finding the Therapeutic Dose
If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain the illness has no cure.
—A. P. Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
Too many weeks after the pills finally convinced me
to swallow, the meds begin to work:
My brain inhales
the flames of their mystery dance—
& music’s a Thing again. Birds singing
could be(?) spilling the secrets of Eden,
or something that golden.
I imagine bEEs knEE-dEEp
in the swollen dust of pollen. Foods persuade me
of their close resemblance to mann(aah). I get
how the day lilies prEEn for the sun,
listen hard for the sweet WOW-
ness in everything, ingest all
the hues I can muster. Whatever
can be gathered by way of perception
gleams & whist!les, is cool or s(of)t
to the touch—however I prefer to take it in.
Clouds find a way to leave, finally
see their EXIT→ signs.
I remember the reason not to say
why I always feel like dying.
But all of this will be short-lived.
Doses will slowly be raised, yet
brain will fall,/fail
to understand the point
of rising. Bit by bit, colors will slip
loose from their textures,
& sounds begin to dim
their wits;
the only way to discern the world
is through a straw—
paper, of course.
Back to the bell jar again, forgetting
there was ever air available,
misplacing my motive to breathe.
Still,
the opening act is quite a thrill,
when happiness seems so doable,
& all my senses rise from their dead(end)ness,
my will to live drenched in the hopes
of the moon-fed dew, so relieved
to get to be without a clue
. . . what comes next.
On the Other Side of Blood
The blood I remember most is out-of-nowhere blood, the muddy feel of it
in my mouth that night the tornado smacked our house & spit
me out. The grass was gone—ripped up & replaced by a bloodied
field of stuff that didn’t belong. I was six. In shock. In the dark. The sky
raced to empty all the rain it held at once. My jaw tore away
from the leash of its bones & didn’t know why. Only seconds before,
I’d been standing warm & dry in the dining room, wondering
why the street lights had gone from on to dark. In the wounds
of weeks that followed, I mazed my way alone
through two surgeries & dozens of little roommates
fussed over by moms & dads who studied the crusted blood on my face
with a mixture of pity & forced cheer—while
my parents never came to see me after that first night.
That first night, all I knew was Something had moved me
from the dining room to this moment of blood,
sitting cold & wet in the front yard’s remains,
an ice-driven rain stitching clothes to my skin
as I gingerly moved my first two fingers
around the mess where my teeth used to be.
Later I realized what the blood was,
the hows & whys of its liquid scream.
That first night, I couldn’t tell you
what the blood tasted like—
I’d swallowed a river of fear.
As I watched myself outside myself,
waves of shock shook me into knowing
the grownup meaning of blood
& a bitter truth:
what had been ripped out
was Something More than
eight baby teeth.
Blood was a dream I was in.
On the other side of waking
was a storm I could not name.
Dog Gone Grief
After he died, my dog became
a completely different sort of person.
What his death unleashed
has left him rather low.
He sleeps more than ever before:
so tired his sighs collect and comprise
his only form of exercise.
Most days, you’ll find he’s kind
of glued to the floor (or
couch, as I’d never say No).
And he only jumps
up for meals, and rarely even
for those, since he eats less
than normal much so.
(But seems to weigh more?)
He looks over at his toys
like he doesn’t understand
something he used to
be able to know.
Plus that ball he adored,
the one for him alone
I’d happily, lovingly
throw and throw—
it just won’t let go.
Still growls at strangers, though.
He will always do that.
Anne Rankin’s poems have appeared in The Healing Muse, Hole in the Head Review, Atlanta Review, Comstock Review, Whale Road Review, and Kelp Journal. She has work forthcoming in The Bluebird Word, kern, Boomer Lit Magazine, Rattle, and Maine Public Radio’s Poems from Here. She lives in Brunswick, Maine.
