The hospice light is flawless.
The steel in my room gleams.
Gold embraces the linoleum.

Outside, butterflies tease the bougainvillea
with tongues.
The eastern hills are green.

Crows fly by without faces.
A red hawk perched on a fence
devours a pigeon.

The wind carries the smell of blood
through my screen.
Pine trees have fallen from last night’s storm—

they lie helpless in the next lot,
their roots burning in the sun.
These trees have joined me on the horizontal,

a level where the body
can be easily poked and prodded.
This place breeds vertical nurses,

transfusions, doctors whispering
in doorways. A white coat photographs me
nude on my canvas.

I am a shutterbug’s delight,
a deconstructing subject.
The lens blinks my mortality.