A Scientist’s Advice on Healing

by Christy Ducker

Try to accept
this fat red hurt
is your starting point,
in the way a pen must be put to paper
in one particular spot,

then move

beyond
the globby flap
of blame
and past
the mono-sulk
of pain.

Change the subject,
before it’s too late.
Sketch out
what health
you do possess,
what signal-cascades,
what flotilla of cells
circumnavigate you,

then draw yourself back
together again,
in a language
of your own.

Your body’s talk
is loose as lymph —
it’ll have you open out
as a tree,
or sneak up on pain
as assassin,
sidekick,
or wolf.

Encourage this
for healing won’t come at you
straight.
Embrace the lack of heroics —
this isn’t Hollywood,
it’s you,
in a plot
that may
or may not resolve.