Lovenox

      for Hilda Downer

Brittle dawn, Hilda bundles
from Bandana to Vilas

and injects me with Lovenox
to deliquesce the DVT

that lurks behind my busted knee.
Long yellow hair,

black velvet 20s cloche hat,
raven feather slashed across an eye,

she appears in the sunroom,
manifests—like a fairy—a syringe

from her frock coat pocket,
ceremoniously uncaps it,

smiles, holds it above her head,
depresses its piston,

flicks its barrel. Up bubble
ellipses of oxygen, a zest

of Lovenox evanesced
in the first jagged rays of altitude,

chipped off Snake Den’s rime ice,
beamed through our panes.

Blinded, I lift my sleep-shirt,
in faith, and bare my stomach.

I don’t witness the needle enter,
nor reckon when it does—

not the slightest pain; I gaze
at Hilda whispering iambs:

the first two lines of her exquisite poem
about this bright morning at my home.