the Coma

We drilled a foundation deep enough to root the antenna.
The neurosurgeon carefully attached the cables
and zeroed the Camino.
And we listened to the waves of inner space.
Earth to Carly, earth to Carly.
Are you in there?

Tell me who you are,
where you've gone -
If you are - anymore.
Your universe has swollen tight,
building pressure, imploding
your monuments and memories, sacred places,
laughter.
We tried Propofol, Fentanyl, elevated head of bed;
your temples flooded, starved, burned up instead.
Anoxia took its offerings.
Reflex is all that's left, it seems.
The room around your universe feels empty - odd, because
it's full of cables, monitors, machines,
gizmos and gadgets all to predict
the likelihood of intelligent response -
they try but they cannot suffice
to prove your intracranial life.

Tell me who she's been,
who she was -
though we're not quite ready
to commit to past-tense verbs.
Light, you say, so light-hearted, so light:
gravity could never hold her.
I think she's floated finally away.
I think, but I don't say.
The subclavian triple lumen is a conduit
to the blood-river at her core -
which is lapping low like never before
in a channel eroded, shifting from recent shock.
And the low tide is keeping the little supply boats
from reaching the power centers
but if the river rises, it will flood more of her brain.


Tell me who she was.
There, we said it.
We said it, and now we can be honest,
look our hope in its cold, far-away face.
She's funny, so funny, and she likes to swim.
And she's honest, so raw -
"you can't trust the future," says her tattoo,
blooming out on her collarbone,
below her unearthly-peaceful face.
Is she floating somewhere in there, still
suspended in the CSF that couldn't
absorb enough of the shock?
I don't feel you here, Carly, I don't feel you.
Your family is waiting, so am I,
but you - in the static of your universe,
in the disordered echoes of transmitters and receivers,
in the intracranial mystery -
you are lost, you are lost to me.