Star-Like* 

    by Michael T. Milbocker

By his side, I see what my eyes do not see,

Hear what my ears do not hear,

Feel what my skin does not touch.

I am with thoughts outside of my imagining;

I am lost without advantage in that which I anticipate.

His words are like images in the depths of closed eyes.

Our knowing is exhausted, shards fenced into intimacy, untilled.

The now that befriends, shrivels.

How dark is mortality that snags on the cipher of reason?

And even to me, the bracelet on his wrist keeps him secret,

Like the rose plant kept secret by its flowers;

Like the ocean depths kept secret by the sun’s fiery glances.

I find myself wrapped in moments

And made dark by his brilliance.

He is dissected, but my life is in fragments.

Among the pieces . . . what I do not see . . . becomes my dissolution.

We are two into one

By circumstance that prevents union.

My presence is the touch that cancels.

His, both “was” and “shall be.”

He is a caterpillar taken by the butterfly.

He takes my hand as if to say:

His image is best seen by looking away.

*A faint star can only be seen by looking away, because there are more light receptors outside the fovea.

© 2010 Michael T. Milbocker

Michael T. Milbocker founded Promethean Surgical Devices, and acts as Chief Science Officer, where he interacts directly with patients and doctors.  Before starting Promethean, he was Principal Scientist at ABIOMED, and worked in their successful implantable artificial heart program.  We're all familiar with the metaphor for the anatomical heart as center for emotion and the soul.  However, patient's families and doctors alike frequently comment that people who receive artificial hearts are alive, but less human.  Michael's poetry primarily addresses the importance of the family support network in patient outcomes associated with prosthetic correction of disease states.