CURE ALL

The sky is filled with emblems of dead light.
All the facts of the world are set in a single bone.
Well, heal the sick, send the tired, mongrel dog
into the desert, be done with it.
We could start again in that new silence. The wind howls as you offer to write me
a blank check. I do a desperate pantomime,
but all I can spell out is, “I don’t care.” You forego the river, where the stricken are laid out in listless bowers. And I am left
with a medicine that can’t even cure itself.