Translation

There are emotions we haven't named yet,
so when my friend feels "like three different levels
of noise," that's all that can be said.
The radio hums in the corner of her room like life support.
And though I know her history of melodrama--
she says she hid her bottle under the bed
so that each morning she'd be reminded to pray--
there's something different about this.
She looks up at me, smiles, says "I'm sorry,"
a mantra, tells me one night, when she was away,
she found herself staring at another patient
and without a word, they both began to cry.
On opposite ends of the room, crying.
The doctors had to carry him away and
he was dead the next morning.
No one could explain why and nobody asked her.
I take her hand, trace her fingers with mine,
tell her there's a story I want to read her,
but would rather just turn up the radio,
pull her into me and dance. She rises,
says tonight the moon is a ouija glass,
and we move our bodies through the room.
When the song is over, she looks like a flower,
dying in time-lapse.

William Coleman