Life Proceeds by Shawn McCloskey

Clear liquid in bottles
Five or six on a metal cart
My hands reach to one
But are strapped to arm rests.
If I could move the patients chair
I would use my teeth.

Terminals hum electric
Inside a sound proof center of science.
Surrounding a specimen,
Unseen figures operate behind tinted windows
Loose wires tickle my cheek.

Before exposed to white light
The person driving was texting the moon-
Flipping through contacts,
Flipping car over the railing,
-Floating past the moon,
A magnetic hand pulled me onwards like a dust-buster.


Angels dressed like metal projectors
Cat scans of my head
X rays cause hair loss
Cleanse the shell of toxins
Align repaired organs according to manual
Exchange lungs for gills
Substitute fins for feet
Reduce brain size to egg
Remove tube from ear canal.

Sliding out of the seat
And landing on the floor with a thud
My rubber flesh flops like a fish on a boat’s deck
Until two able arms calm my nervous tail
And my savior throws me out of his spaceship.

As I fall from grace
Stars whiz by like the shrimps I eat
Upon entering the ocean’s black.