Pre-Op Prayer

Tomorrow when they are slicing your eye open
or using the laser or whatever it is they do
I will be thinking of Orion, bandolier belt low-slung
breakdancing from branchtop to branchtip in the elm antlers
and how I got the campfire started when you couldn't
where there is smoke there is fuel that refuses to ignite
pine needles without any pitch drips
I had to coax the flames out with gentler hands
and a hell of a lot more matches than usual
enough air and tinder and the heat will siphon away the dead smoke
your surgeons will work similar magic I think
when you can see again the constellations will dance
across the retina of the night sky

back to issue

Erica A. Fletcher works in biomedical research in Boston. Her poems have been published in Green Ink Poetry, Sky Island Journal, Hawk and Whippoorwill, Uppagus, Silkworm, and The Writers' Cafe Magazine. She has played in the rock band Nurse & Soldier since 1997. She can sometimes be found on Twitter at @ericafletcher.