In a hospital bed, I am lying like a photograph waiting to be developed.

I am not tied down, but the pain does

What ordinary restraints do not have to.

I watch the curtains, in the most modern institutional fashion,

Dance in time with the hum of the air conditioning unit’s song.

Only my eyes moveI am numb, yet awake enough to see them

methodically dissect and remove my organs one by one.

I am crying.  I worked hard over many years to keep them intact.

And as parts of me are put into their chosen vessels, , and afford me some savored measure of freedom.

There is a light outside,  but the curtains are closed,

so I cannot tell what season it is- or if it is sunlight 

or the flood lights of the parking garage that I see.

I hear them coming.  The brakes squeak as they release them,

and the dirge of my bed rolling down the hallways echoes

through near empty halls, past endless rooms- some filled with patients.

In one of them, is there a lost love languishing?  Is there a friend?

The wheels stop.  

I am in a dim operating theater, lit by a solitary bulb.  

Wordlessly, I am transferred to a table.  

I could be their latest test subject.

There are many aisles filled with spectators.

They are anonymous in their matching uniforms- white surgical scrubs,

matching masks: sterile and immaculate.

The audience watches expressionless-

Disembodied I observe from above.