Intensive Care Unit

In one corner of the ward
somebody was eating a raw chicken.
The cheerful nurses did not see.
With the tube down my throat
I could not tell them.
Nor did they notice the horror show
on the TV set suspended over my windowless bed.
The screen was dead
but a torn face was clear.

I did not see my own
in a mirror for weeks.
When it happened,
when I dared to face my face
after the ravaging,
it was not mine
but something whittled, honed down
to a sly resemblance.
It, even the mirror, the pale room,
the oxygen tank
neat and black as a bomb
in its portable crate—
all was hallucination.

But the bloody rooster,
the stray pieces of bodies
slung into dreamless nooks,
the white-haired doll whimpering
on a gift counter—
those were real.

I keep living there.
Foolish. I am home. Half safe.