Clinical Clear

The laptop lid came down like a verdict,

a plastic click that meant the end of the line.

He saw a map of a healthy, hollow man

where I feel the slow leak of a rusted spine.

I sit in the front seat until the glass goes opaque

with the heavy fog of my own breathing.

The pedestrians pass without a double-take

while the thing in my chest keeps seething.

If the machine doesn't see the shadow,

it doesn't exist in the fluorescent light.

I am a ghost with a clean bill of health

driving home into the middle of the night.