Bypass
One day it's Miss Scarlet with
the Candlestick in the Conservatory,
the next they're carting someone
down the corridor to where Dr. Black
with the chisel in the O.R.
waits to crack the vault of a chest.
It's not a calico cat, purring
all night by a child's side,
not acne, not the daily rush
to the job, it's a gurney pulsing
along a narrow passageway,
and it seems you are that someone
for whom the Heart Team scrubs,
a corpuscle the color of dusk,
wanting for air, and no clue
how you got there, nor who waits
so silently behind the next door,
Colonel Mustard or Professor Plum,
come to the Ballroom with the Rope.
Copyright © Roy Jacobstein All rights reserved
The Threepenny Review, Spring 2000
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