Ode to Impermanence

— anatta, for Richard

I tossed in the dark, thumbing a silver button
until the nurse shoved me an Oxy in a paper cup.
Hot, cold, hungry, rolling from one
dream to another. But who dreamed? Who
unraveled that white thread, plunging
the catastrophes of mind & body?
I dreamt a morphine dream,
electrodes glued to my skin.
Dreamt of a rattlesnake coiled in my bed.
I dreamt of our father, who threw open
a second-story window, jabbing a shotgun
into the green breast of an oak tree.
Johnny he said bring me that dead bird.
I went looking for it, barking in the mulch,
sniffing that mound of butterfly wings.
I couldn’t find it, & when I turned our father was gone.
I woke & yelled his name, & the morning
shattered like a light fixture crashing to the floor.

John Amen is the author of five collections of poetry, including Illusion of an Overwhelm (NYQ Books, 2017), a finalist for the 2018 Brockman-Campbell Award, and work from which was chosen as a finalist for the Dana Award. He was the winner of the 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, and his poems have been translated into Spanish, French, Hungarian, Korean, and Hebrew. His music, literary, and film reviews appear widely in such publications as Colorado Review, No Depression, Beats Per Minute, and PopMatters. He founded and is managing editor of Pedestal Magazine.