poppies

...a student gave me a tincture of poppies, so I can roll over and drop it under my tongue in the middle of the night when my searing headache, now - where are we - week 11? 12? - has me staring into darkness trying to think the tendons in my neck into pliability and trying to imagine just where the pain is now and what it might look like in there - some kind of electric blue hot molly-bolt popped open in my medulla, pink spinning glass rod between my temples.

well the poppies...(i hear the Wicked Witch of the West: "Poppies, Paawpies!"). one drop under my tongue and my dreams go wild, turn into the bean stock from Jack and the Bean stock, take on a scale even that in my complex dreaming is magnified to a grandiose and different out-sizing and I am gone.

No time now to write of the gallactic snowstorm, and perfect body sledding fast on a(nother tilting) world: the geography complete, satellite-mappable in its scope and detail.
I have to get ready for class.

I do hope I'm not getting hooked on opiates. (my student assures me the tincture is not that)
Still, when I finally get an image of my stupid head in three weeks, I wouldn't be surprised to find it stuffed to bursting with golden poppies and little teenytiny palm-sized worlds and vast, magnificent alpine planets in which it snows falling stars and i play for lifetimes like the happiest child.

For today's prompt, write an emergency poem. The first thought that springs to my mind is flashing lights and paramedics. If I think on it a little longer, I realize there are several other possible emergency situations out there--not all of them involving people. I look forward to seeing what everyone creates.


Muse

It is not an emergency, though he has jumped off a cliff without a net.
They all cried out. His arms were wild.
It looked bad

She is there, off-camera, not to catch him but to slow him down

he slips through the arcs of her arms
that encircle and slow

She, wearing white, flowing, transparent - thin clouds
(it is this high up)
is stunning and focused, directing, demonstrates
the complete change of direction, the pike
legs up
muscles defined in the point no one sees
executed, then a dive down backwards

They do it in tandem
and are perfect

The camera catches him alone
slicing into the night water
without a splash.