by
from One World at a Time
© 1985
The University of Pittsburgh
Press
All rights reserved; used with permission.
(
In the clinic, a sun-bleached shell of stone
on the shore of the city, you enter
the last small chamber, a little closet
chastened with pearl, cool, white, and glistening,
and over the chilly well of the toilet
you trickle your precious sum in a cup.
It's as simple as that. But the heat
of this gold your body's melted and poured out
into a form begins to enthrall you,
warming your hand with your flesh's fevers
in a terrible way. It's like holding
an organ--spleen or fatty pancreas,
a lobe from your foamy brain still steaming
with worry. You know that just outside
a nurse is waiting to cool it into a gel
and slice it onto a microscope slide
for the doctor, who in it will read your future,
wringing his hands. You lift the chalice and toast
the long life of your friend there in the mirror,
who wanly smiles, but does not drink to you.
Ted Kooser’s poetry has appeared most recently in The Antioch Review, The Hudson Review, and The Kenyon Review; his awards include two NEA Fellowships and the Stanley Kunitz Prize from Columbia magazine. He makes his living as a life insurance executive, and is also an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska, where he teaches occasional courses in poetry writing.
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