Health Care 101

Your ring finger waged a martyr war at Mount Car Door
then played the part of a chubby kid pouting at Christmas
    —as so many wounded things do.

Held near halogen, four haloed digits likened lava—lightsaber—
    but, retaining blood, the fifth piggy remained opaque.
Less brat than burnt out bulb on the outdoor Xmas string.

Gobbling all of your Pac-Man pellets with ghost-hunting panache,
    we claimed we feasted as if we'd fasted for a fortnight
because while giggling it sounded like Martianspeak—eventually.

Undaunted—Karl Popper’s penguins lectured on falsification.
    Hand to halogen—the churlish song of hand hair slowly singeing.
Still, a knot annexed the knuckle in a darkened enclave.

Doctor! Scalpel! We have a patient in need. Then violets—violets.
    A rainbow coalesced in the centrifuge then dissipated.
“Someday, the gate will open—” You chucked another acorn.

Unresponsive—I was choking on smoke, or vapor—ether…
I could never keep those noble gasses partitioned
    —like three distinct gestures in the dark.

Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. His writing has recently appeared in Meridian, The Southern Review, Louisville Review, Fence, Rosebud, Atlanta Review, Texas Review and Fjords Review among others. He publishes a writing prompt blog Notebooking Daily and is the editor of the journal Coastal Shelf.