Impossible Discovery

The teacher adds, “I’m very sure
Oxygen had been discovered
During the seventeen hundreds—”
“But no!” The student interjects,
“Professor, with all due respect,
What then did people breathe before!?”

The eighteen-wheeler speeding 'round the curve

The eighteen-wheeler speeding 'round the curve....
eleven hundred weeks—before me—flashed:  
the doctors, nurses, students, staff, the rooms, 
and soon, the judge and jury, lawyers—theirs 
and ours—harangues on mercy, blame; intent 
and chance, revenge and justice....Time we spent
rewording and remaking life: I'm numb
with dolor, fury, horror, guilt, and shame; 
the runes of woe, my daily torture, now
tattooed inside my wasting folds of flesh. 
Emotions cling, unsaid, unnamed—preserved  
inside my jaw and limbs, my blood and bones,
the meanings lost, just piles of words and words.  

The eighteen-wheeler speeding 'round the curve—
and for a moment going o'er the curb—
now swerved about the purple traffic cones  
(thus marking borders of my tortured nerves).