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What is your temperature?
The doctor asked
During an ordinary visit.
I left the examining room
And walked through 
My palace
Skin and hair
Nails and tissue,
75 years of growth.
Ivy wild 
as a Venus flytrap
Snaring an insect.
Tendrils curl and cover
Cages of ribs
Prisons of my own making,
Arid and Dry.

Soothing rain
Falls from mouth and nose
With nowhere to go,
Pores clogged
With regret.
Breath shallow
In and out
In and out.
No escape.
Chest
Rising and falling,
Rising and falling.
Dry air moving
Dry air moving
Over parted lips.
Teeth clenching
Unclenching
Teeth clenching
Unclenching.
“Temperature is normal.”
I respond.

I return the next day
Where is your pain?
The doctor asks.
I reenter my 
Pulsing, beating, breathing
Palace.
A child moves further
Away on the bed
From an adult’s
Meandering hand.
The hand disappears.
The touch remains.
Blood pressure rises
Breathing becomes shallow.
Fatigued,
I relax 
By aqua blue
pools of bliss.
75 years of blessings
Fill once arid spaces.
Adventures daringly dreamed
by a South Chicago kid,
Raised by parents
of the Second World War
“Roosevelt knew the
Japs were coming.”
He did nothing 
To stop it.”
A ticky tacky house 
By the tracks 
Is our Gardens of Babylon.
I say good-night
To the whistling roar
Of a mighty steam engine
Ever so lightly
Shaking my foundation.

I return the next day.
Cheered by 
Yesterday’s excavation.
I meet Seven Brides
Carrying oil lamps.
Their light
brightens once-dark corners.
Castle-like ventricles
Arch into stairways
Leading to
Magnificent towers.
Pink, baby skin
Warms a Mother’s heart.
Three children grown,
Now parents.
Six grandchildren,
Hardly children.
I look closer.
The pain evaporates.
Geysers of Gratitude,
Mist fills deserts.
Orchids of pink
Violet and gold.
Bright Pink Flamingoes circle
Capture and close.
Childhood scars,
Covered by mossy
Sponges, soak up old anger,
Vacuuming the shame
Of innocence.

I know now 
Why the ivy 
Meanders, clings and binds
To new cells 
And old bones.
Its tendrils give 
Eternal life.
Evergreen,
It breathes 
Forgiveness
Fidelity and constancy.
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