response to a doctor's findings

The doctor pulls bones,
muscles, tissues, all white
in that ghost of a film
from the brown enve-
lope. I hear it shuffle
with the rest of the do-
cuments inside, as if breath-
ing huskily, owning up the pain.

Some sounds are not meant
to be heard yet I close in.
A series of fluctuating graphs
is studied next to a list
of linked letters and numb-
ers that make no sense.
I consider having my eyes
checked the following week.

A joke, how this one diagram
curves into a smile and mocks
at my failure to figure
the codes siphoned
from my own body.
Incomplete right bundle branch.
Emphysema. Acid reflux.
The charts are laughing.

But there is none of these.
Only a nod and a smile,
real, finally, from the doctor
who hands a prescription.
Before leaving, we
exchange possibili-
ties, assurances and re-
assurances.

“Your heart is strong,”
the doctor says.
In my head,
No, doc, it’s not.
I just think
there are mis-
takes that will al-

ways be right.