luminous bruises in the fog

broken limbs and shiny hearts

For 28 years I was extremely lucky in that I rarely considered my body beyond how it looked. Everything — legs, arms, organs — worked without me having to think about it. Then a car hit me and suddenly I was looking down at a thigh that curved in the middle. A femur fracture, the doctor who happened to be walking down the street right after it happened said — you’ll need surgery. It hurt so terribly I blacked out the pain; I was told later that I asked the EMTs for Advil and they laughed and gave me morphine.

I’m fine!!!! It is kind of a marvelous thing to heal, the science of it and also the experience of pain ebbing day after day, muscles dissolving into sorry things and then straining to approximate what they were just two months ago. Stillness is tedious and depressing but also: I shed a crutch yesterday. I can operate a stationary bike, slowly.

In 2011 the poet Dean Young received a heart transplant, after more than ten years of living with a degenerative heart condition. His poems are vivid and delightful — the first one below, “Red Glove Thrown in Rose Bush,” is from the collection published days after his transplant, and “Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns” was published a few years later.

I love the line “what a war must be fought for simplicity!” — when you are sick, yes, but in healthy times, too, simple moments can feel so hard-won.

These poems are clearly a Before and an After, but wonder and gratitude are abundant in both. Because we are mortal there are bruises and also always beauty: firecrackers and dancing and perfect summer tomatoes, and also peaches and orchids and snow.

XO,

G