I can take you Tuesday, the doctor said
over the heads of three interns
he’d brought in to see my film.
They were gaping at an x-ray of
my pelvis, their mouths
open wide as the butterfly
wings of my cracked basin:
a Rorschach betraying central instability.
If the breach grows any wider, they say,
I’ll fall apart completely—
collapse like a limp doll.
The plan is to graft a cadaver’s bone
onto mine— the arranged marriage
to be performed under a canopy
of blue surgical plastic, the union
secured with tiny pins and glue
in hopes we two
will be compatible and bond for life.
Some easy walks in the park at first
then, maybe dancing.
As I write this, I think about how life works—
How we’re brought together by some inner need.
How we give each other back our lives.
