Anniversary of My Death
Revere Beach, Massachusetts

Kristen Hoggatt-Abader

Firm to foam to the water lapping Thank you on this beach,
to the storm that won’t die,
to the rain that grieves,
to the drops that cool my skin and age my scars,
to the drops that come now in summer’s reprieve.

Last night, Anubis rose from the dark East.
Last night, he treated my corpse and put my excised heart
on a plate as Amir Timur’s crude feast.
Last night, fear, cold-boned: the banshee’s late-night shriek,

when that bitter poison reminded me of my precious health,
when the doctor’s cage saved me from myself,
when I fell out the back, when I fell on the black,
when my friends like Icarus flying,
when I launched into stillness undisturbed by busy hands.

To Arizona, to the ICU,
to that tube coiling fury into my voice,
to the wreck that marred the open road,
to the interstate, to the milepost,
to the warlike whir of airlift propellers,
to the dimming of sirens,
to the dimming of light—hours that tick away the sun,
to the drip as the IV’s begun,
to my black pen,
I await its coming, and it will come again.