The Invalid

A poem for America

A detail from Katsushika Hokusai’s (1760–1849) “The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji” from his collection One Hundred Ghost Tales (1833.). See full image below.

The Invalid

He enters this poem with scissors 
and a spool of bronze thread. 

His teeth are showing. His mouth, 
stained with ink, opens like a trunk. 

He reaches in and pulls out 
a needle, two beads, and a fist. 

This is cancer. This is black snow. 
His thumbs are bleeding. He grins, 

pinches my cheek, then again, 
he opens his mouth. “Powder, 

soil, a suitcase to fill for a trip,” 
he says. “This is heaven: 

an apartment with a piano, 
a woman who plays by ear, 

two sinks, a plastic basket, 
and a ceiling made of mirrors. 

This is you, dressed in plaid, 
dancing across the high wire, 

trembling to the tune that rises 
from the invalid below. 

This is you, trying to find 
a pencil, trying to eat a peach, 

reaching to the ceiling for a cure 
and finding a blindfold.”