vortex

it’s a bright place
with long and artful hallways
where I bring my girls
to see their gentle doctor

I come here regularly
moving ahead of the memory
dispensing the medicine to myself
one drop at a time

but today turns different
when I stop
(for I never stand still here)
and my past catches up to me

standing in an atrium
suspended colorful balloons
draw me upward
toward the sunlight high above

while wheelchairs and gurneys
swirl around me
children pushed by parents
searching for some reprieve

and between the light, stories above
and the life stories all around
the whole room spins
a whirlpool pulling me down
toward the morgue

caught in the murky vortex
between life and death
struggling to catch my breath
and stay above the surface

feeling the call
of my ancestors and my son
beckoning me to join them in sleep
to escape this mad cauldron

yet drawn back to life
by life