Monday, February 6, 2017

Just Say No

 Drug-Free Day

A woman from the hospital

brought in two lungs-

one pink and healthy,

one blackened and shriveled, an ironic bezoar-

and showed a score of grade-schoolers

how to reanimate them at will

with the push of a pedal.

She spoke of mortality in terms of

cigarette smoke

and they listened with morbid curiosity.

 

When it came to be their turn,

a score of grade-schoolers

pulled latex gloves over their own life-filled fingers,

one by one, approached the displaced organs

and unflinching, pedaled bursts

of room-temperature air,

inflating, deflating,

in grim determination to make them breathe again.

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