The nurse
pushed a needle into the twist
of cobalt currents under my skin.
In nervous solidarity I blurted out
“Bifurcate: to divide into two parts,
a divergence.”
The three-eyed light above the bed
settled a vacant stare. The light had
a name: Infinity. Of course. But the vein
blew its universal pulse on the sheet,
spilling its ceaseless rhetoric.
I said because like the pattern
of veins the words pumped dumbly:
“Two veins diverged in a yellow wood, and I,
I took the vein less traveled by,” except
the nurse didn’t laugh since he had blown
the second attempt and the vein itself.
Robert said he wasn’t the type
who did things twice, even though he admitted
he liked bifurcated veins. Nestled deep, a twinge.
Inside me, two ovaries diverged, one swollen
and the other unremarkable except in medical
terms unremarkable denotes perfection in shape
and function so in this empty, aging infinite tree
with its lowly eyes and teeth and prominent left
branch of irregular leaves, the light with
three immeasurable eyes, I forgot my mask
with its two loops. The truth
only breathing breeds inescapable focus.
And the needle slid through a place we
weren’t even looking, not even on the path
but on the bend of my left shoulder,
some silent angel
or a forgotten wing.
