Hail Mary

(A Migraine and A Stem Cell Transplant)

The noises coming from the floor grate of this hotel room sized apartment have become the soundscape for my migraine nausea dreams

The slow hum crescendos into rhythmic waves like a giant metallic swamp bug splayed on the basement floor rubbing its legs together in a private performance

This is perhaps what basements do here on weekends I am new to the neighborhood while we throw a Hail Mary to the cancer gods and I’m not staying long enough to become familiar

You patiently live in an inpatient bed twenty minutes away I am learning the street names while you learn the names of your nurses and medications:

This one makes the dog park appear on the right This one makes your blood cells grow while you sleep

Hail Mary full of grace

Making up prayers from tidbits I’ve heard because I don’t really know what I believe in I only know what I’ve ruled out

The sockets in my skull throb behind a silk mask

just the right pressure to lull me to sleep to become one with the siren song from below listening for clues understanding the telekinesis of the current situation

Maybe I will tell it as a story later in my life where I am pinned to my bed like a specimen and you to yours, tubes needled in and out of your body— but the conclusion has yet to make itself known.