My Waiting Brain

by Bruce Weigl

i

There are certain pathways he must follow when he goes into my brain,
or else something catastrophic might happen he said. He said
any kind of bleeding in the brain is not good and should be avoided.
I think he was talking to himself. Meantime, my waiting brain said
Love yourself; love your pain and your illnesses
waiting down the road for you like old friends in the shade. Better
spend some time tonight looking at the stars.

ii

Empty again like the dead hawk's heart is empty of blood on the
highway
where it must have slammed into the truck's windshield at say
sixty-five miles an hour,
is how my brain says the world looks today,
although it may be this unseasonably warm winter of green grass,
and geese
who don't know which way to hoot
that has my head spinning;
the way a too warm December evening
can hold still its last moment of light, right before your eyes.

iii

Help, my waiting brain says, and then, Fuck you.
He woke me up at four a.m.
with his pal, Mr. Spinning Room,
in our private field of opiates,
so all I could do was lay there and listen to rain murmer in the night,
the sound like someone who is lost,
talking to herself in darkness.

iv

Good morning highly polished chrome nightmare tool.
You look fine this morning, like a silver snake
bristling alive in every scale,
longing to be inserted into my waiting brain
to wind down the tunnels of me, once and for all.

v

We were celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ the Savior,
by stuffing our bodies with food and wine,
so like the Romans,
we fell into a stupor afterward,
a semicomatose state, especially the men.
Everyone was otherwise preoccupied,
and though I was surrounded
by the snoozing, snoring bodies of my people,
it was as if I were alone,
just my waiting brain and me. Night came
with its enormous rotation of stars,
so something seemed possible, even if it wasn't hope,
even if the thing we spend our lives moving toward
is unknowable, until it's too late to turn back.

vi

In the dark I wanted peace,
my waiting brain told me,
as if that's too much to ask,
as if sacrifice is too much to ask,
given everything I've done for you
my brain explained, and how could I argue.

vii

In the end, my waiting brain said
Dismantle me but don't undress,
the blue spruce watch us through the blowing snow;
forgive my forgetfulness,
but I don't remember my name.