Lisa Richter
ULCERATIVE COLITIS REMISSION CONDITIONAL
—after Madeline Bassnett's "Justice"
If I swallow the wrong pills. If I take them
at the wrong time, without food to soften
their blunt blow on the belly. If my stomach
should wage a campaign and grunt-push a red flag
into my heart’s untenderized meat. If the lining
of my large intestine and my rectum should swell
into rose-engorged tissue. If deep inside
those little underground bars there should be
sores weeping into their beers and those tears
should stream bright strawberry-red. If the pain
should seize hold of my gut and squeeze until
it flinches. If I should need to eat foods blander
than cloud-paste, mouthfuls of glue and cotton.
If in this now-familiar land of shit and blood
I must navigate mountain highways with hairpin
curves around which my body careens. If my nose
bleeds from the air as it thins into a sieve. If
avalanche. If brush fire. If turkey vultures lassoing
overhead mistake my fumbling limbs for prey.
If I lose myself in this blazing territory called
flare-up and cannot find my way back
to the forest, the still lake, the ocean.