The hospital room, at midnight

Drained neatly, each hour,
stapled to a network
of steel, wet plastic,
web of blood and urine.

Before the final bell
of this fluorescent night:
an orange.

Oils burst, wild,
juices glow,
virginal, cold – alive! –
a caravan, the blue-white sky,
red haze of cinnamon, and
bitter aloes, desert wind.

In any trap,
escape is within:

it will be
white cinnamon,
sweet aloes.

[Los Angeles, 3/7-27/90]