The tricks might slip away from me again.
Forgotten by tomorrow, like the birds

passing, flashing, by the window now.
How to turn the victim; whether to mouth

or not to mouth to mouth;
where to finger the place of a pulse.

I fumble without a salve for these spots
that keep showing up blind.

The longer I breathe, the more strange and cruel
the plays death makes around me.

I’ve found my way back to this course
wanting only to be taught to survive

the bloodless guilt of not knowing
how and where and when to say goodbye.

Instead they’d certify me a savior
keeping hope alive through protocols

sealed with steady compressions by the minute.
Every year, back here, I recount the old

and add up all the new ones I have loved
whisked away when I wasn’t looking

though I have worked my tongue,
pen and prayer only to fail them.

While off in another continent
they have died in my sleep.

Thus I return to you fluent
in tourniquet and death,

my hands bound tight and force-fed
the grace to let them go.