<%@ Language=VBScript %> After the Diagnosis - Mused - the BellaOnline Literary Review Magazine
MUSED
BellaOnline Literary Review
Little Hoot by Christine Catalano

Table of Contents

Poetry


After the Diagnosis

Brigitte Goetze

Snowy straitjackets restrain the firs.
In front of me, hills and mounds
form feet and folded hands,
stiff below a pulled-up sheet.
I breathe the stinging cold.
Silence slows my pulse,
shadows fill my tracks.

Still, the old oaks’ fingers point
towards the moon, a pale and elevated host.
Branch-built arches raise a ghostly abbey,
where black-cowled juncos murmur
like ancient priest-physicians
incantations which incline
this body to the surgeonīs knife.