For My Best Friend

Tongo Eisen-Martin

We are losing the intensive care unit waiting room war

 

We were doing so well

           So well we got sleepy

                       So sleepy the institution returned

 

In the 8th adjoined room sleeping on the 8th adjoined chair

 

The last five minutes just like the first

 

Hands behind teeth / teeth behind us

 

Wall plans decorated with her favorite mannerisms

 

Flight / within a subtle sweep

 

Or institution light leaps off of a dreamt thought

                                                                  ... in time

 

She saved my life before,

you know,

all of them ... those lives

mine

One way or the other, every story is told backwards or twice

 

And waking up rough is the same as going roughly into a dream

— is also something her eyes would say

 

Your sister is not going home

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