All that yellowing—–
like Van Gogh’s portrait
of Madame Ginoux,
while from your grin of gums
two silver nubs brightly gleam.
Your eyes roll with an “oi vey”
shrug amid the swelling
while blisters bleed
an egg yolk stain
sunset to sunrise
over every bed pad.
We each take hold of a balloon limb
and look to you or your devoted
Chernobyl husband,
his rumbling Russian, that foreign
noise any heart can decipher,
and while we look, we hold
the going of golden Svetlana
in faith’s font of morphine,
the anguish, the light.
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