There was this creek
turning purpler each year
below the purification plant
where you could find a salamander—
once thought capable of withstanding fire.
A provable lie
like the body is only worth 98 cents
which some say to be tough or amazed or spiritual.
A pineal gland alone, no longer thought
the seat of the soul, goes for
upwards to 110. You can imagine
an intact working heart.
And there’s gold in the body
although not much, more a rumor
of gold that pools in the brain
and has something vital to do with memory,
a whole childhood of clear creeks
electroplated like something on a shelf,
a kind of crown. It’s easy to get excited
about even a little gold.
My job in the lab is to count with a clicker
bacteria in a petri dish of blood agar.
I’m always the first to know
what will be good or bad news upstairs
where people cry on and kiss each other—
part of the main infectious problem.
You’ve got to act like everything
will kill you.
After good night and good morning.
After prayers and a drink of water.
After standing at a window, the window
crying in the circle of your breath,
wash your hands. After your dog does not
come home. After you do your dot-to-dots,
always wash your hands. After meals
and money, any kind of motion.
Always first, always last, always habitual
and hard. Make them luminous, make them smooth,
make them unidentifiable.