Previously published in Wilde Oaks

Ice-clad curb–crack!
Woke in fat sobs
from the anesthetic
dream, screw in my elbow,
cast up my arm,
blubbering not
from shock, not pain,
but from losing again
(strapped down this time)
the god-thighed piano
tuner, my month-dead
heart, fluttering
once more to his
phrase-perfect pitch,
his wrench-handed
touch, and next
to my bed, a nun,
bewildered, daubing
my eyes, frozen rain
sheeting the window.

---

James Kangas (He/him)
James Kangas is a retired librarian and musician living in Flint, Michigan. His poems have appeared in Angel Rust, Atlanta Review, Faultline, The New York Quarterly, The Penn Review, Unbroken, West Branch, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden, was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2019.