Chemotherapy
With each infusion I imagine
I’m a birch tree nurtured
by nutrients traversing
through its roots in a grove.
We’re a community fending
off parasites and strangler figs.
They sense weakness—
those bark beetles, defoliators,
dwarf mistletoes. They’re
like street predators sensing
weakness and opportunity.
We share our collective
intelligence, communicate
warnings about food and
drink. But here the metaphor
collapses. It’s my DNA.
Not the initials I carved
on a tree so long ago. It’s
much bigger than that.
We split the atom,
devastated cities. Just take
a biopsy of Hiroshima trees.
The needle is extracted.
So many fallen leaves.
Bioluminescence
And so in a warm Florida lagoon
sparkling turquoise
as if an ancient Ais tribe
sprinkled magic
into the teeming dinoflagellates
you find yourself
treading and sidestroking,
nearly naked
after you stripped and unexpectedly
jumped from a boat
full of strangers. And as they scream
asking if you’re OK
you know, for just awhile, you looked
like an angel.
Richard L. Matta is originally from New York’s rustic Hudson Valley. His work appears in Glint, Slipstream, Healing Muse, and elsewhere. He currently resides in San Diego, California.