At the hospital I ask whether anything can be done
about the red angle of my understanding
but the doctors deal only in new rednesses, not old,
have no time cupped in their white hands
for the sun my shut eyes carry, so I go on
afflicted by the usual clarity, the sudden waves
of total comprehension, the scorching happiness
I keep having to put down, and when I blink
against the brightness I find my eyes already closed
find only the far side of myself rising over the horizon
the doctors tell me is symptomatic of nothing
more than having a body, which is true,
nothing is more symptomatic than having a body,
that’s what I always say—or would if anyone asked,
which they don’t—the knife of me poised over a question
that does not arise, ready to hand out its sweet segments,
slices of orange sitting incandescent in the bowl of my seeing,
becoming lesser suns, becoming like me
the last gold holdout against the dark river,
against the water soft licking my feet when at last
I come to the crossing and see that I am meant
to leave a tip but my pockets, like the rest of me,
are empty, fingers feeling frantic at my seams,
and all I can say in my defense is I didn’t know
when I was spending them that they were coins.