the poetry of Charles Fry

1 May 1994

grandpa

some of the last visits
were tense like a
coming avalanche
they didn't need to tell us
we knew

then they asked if
they could
have
the body
to test an artificial
heart/lung/stomach/man
contraption

today all we
saw was
a pair of lungs
breathing from an
air compressor
a stomach
feeding from tin cans
and depositing into more
a heart
giving blood to the lungs and stomach

apparently they
didn't have enough
blood
to run him all

Copyright © 1994 Charles Fry