Michael Lauchlan

A Moment Awake

My body has recorded what eludes
my mind. But surgeries edit out

evidence of lost time–a leap, a child’s
bounce still etched in aging joints. 

Also gone–wrenched cartilage from a day
we pushed our luck, shingling at dusk 

until I twisted and slid under a bundle.
I gaze at tool boxes and lockers 

thinking I’ve entered a sterile dream-
version of my own garage, where 

a knife and saw will soon emerge.
Ironic to find my body opening itself, 

preparing to accept titanium, to be
emptied of a torn past, the ligament 

shredded during a game of touch
when my foot found a hole 

while I ran, for a moment, weightless,
in a twenty-year-old’s pursuit 

of a friend who’d die a decade on
and leave behind a wife and son. 

So tranquil from the IV,
I forget my open back gown 

as I sit on a table and a young nurse
slips a needle into my spine.

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Michael Lauchlan has contributed to many publications, including New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Sugar House Review, Louisville Review, Poet Lore, Southern Poetry Review and Lake Effect. His most recent collection is Trumbull Ave. from WSU Press (2015).