Redress

(From the Floral Radiographs of Steven N. Meyers:
Amaryllis, Mountain Fire Pieris, Fern Forest, Rose Petals, Dogwood Blossoms, Four Callas, Foxglove Ballet, Columbine #2)

“Flesh, our one possession, the heart is its own redress.”
-Matthew Copperman

One day a doctor peers at x-rays
and sees what she knows:
spalled bones,
mass on a skull,
small spills of cells.
At night she dreams
these things change,
that in the morning
she brings
a patient in a milkblue gown
news that all is well;
everything is just a flower
rendered transparent.
Her hand covers the patient’s hand
and together they look at
radiographed rose petals,
wavy bivalves floating
on an invisible watercourse;
engrailed bracts
in a spring cold snap;
serried bells;
the throat of an amaryllis
in which bursts a resurrection;
mountain fire’s plain pearls;
bracken.
Someone down the long hall
calls out “butcherbird, butcherbird,”
as if in warning,
but the patient is already
beginning the lonely, arid walk
toward heaths,
all their color burning
beneath her skin.

-Barbara Sorensen