welcoming committee

i sprinkle salt like a prayer.

there’s soup on the stove and it

won’t stop bubbling. slip your shoes on

if you want to come in,

there’s glass on the floor.

grapes burst from their skins.

surgeons-in-training unzip cadavers

like backpacks and cleave through ribs

with ease. in the 1980s more than

116 otherwise healthy young men,

all hmong,

died in their sleep, median age 17.

the velvet-black murk of the hospital hurts

when you’re eating a prepackaged deli sandwich.

lemon juice on a papercut like sunshine,

warmth in my stomach weighing comfortable and thick.

as much as half of a chicken bouillon cube.