You ask me to take the Christ costume

out of the closet. It’s been a year

 

since your consciousness went

missing—stunned out of you

 

into the road: collision of machine & boy,

no pulse in your wrists, your ghost

 

gasping. Crash doesn’t capture it: your halo

ringing as it bounced from gutter

 

to sidewalk, singing down concrete

end over end. I wonder, did you throw

 

your shoulder against your eyelids, wanting

to burst through those last slits

 

of light? Your recollection of this

is dead, as is the seven days

 

after. Yes, the neuro-surgeons were pleased

when you answered: your name, the year, but didn’t

 

know your whereabouts. You told us in nature, lying

hazily in chirping forest, or at a tattoo parlor

 

getting ink on your abdomen: the half-arch

of a rainbow. Sometimes, you’d remember

 

you’re in the neuro ICU & we’d

celebrate. Funny—the detachment of body

 

and brain. I smile when I see the party photos

you post online: you, dressed as Christ,

 

thorny crown, death metal makeup,

bottle of Hennessey in your hand.
 
 
 

Trish Hopkinson has always loved words—in fact, her mother tells everyone she was born with a pen in her hand. A Pushcart nominated poet, she is author of three chapbooks and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including Stirring, Pretty Owl Poetry, and The Penn Review. She is a product director by profession and resides in Utah with her handsome husband and their two outstanding children. You can follow Hopkinson on her blog where she shares information on how to write, publish, and participate in the greater poetry community at http://trishhopkinson.com/.