
HEINE ON LEUKEMIA by Virginia Schnurr
We've read the printout
on marrow transplant: "treatment as intensive and battering
as any in clinical medicine."
All evening the conversation focused
on what to offer to the gods
not our firstborn.
My self-medicated dinner guests try aphorisms:
Life is too short to drink less.
One must forgive one's enemies— but not before they've been
hanged.
If you're born to hang, you'll never drown.
So let the big cat jump!
Self-knowledge is always bad news.
As the hostess,
I have nothing to offer.
I clear the dishes. A wiry figure sits on my kitchen counter.
Heine wants my freshest butter, milk, and flowers
and a good bed for the night,
He whispers: "Make small songs out of your great sorrow."
The wine bottles run dry.
We pair off. Dance. Mendelssohn's "Waiting"
lulls Heine to sleep.