An Undisclosed Fortune

Lexical Fields

Medical - Transient nature of life, how quick life is

The Body - Not permanent, concrete, a vessel that ends

- Trying “to channel“/control life’

My Mother’s fond of the story in which she sucks the mucus from my tiny nostrils so I can breathe. I tried to coax

Lexical Field of The Body: “tiny nostrils“

“tiny” - Fragile - Small details, Every insignificant detail adds up

Lexical Field of Medical: “nostrils” , “breathe”

“I can breathe“ - Life + Death

“coax” - Gentle - Her story not his

enjambment to next stanza - Disconnect - His story vs hers

a poem from it: pictured her, breathing life bak into me like a god. The poem failed, but came back to me while watching E.R,

“it":” Colon - Caesura

Lexical Field of Medical: “life”, “E.R”

“me like a god” - Simile - Demonstrates his relationship

“E.R” - Medical Tv Show

a resident sprayed with a patient’s pancreatic ooze, another’s fingers wrapped around a heart to coax spent muscle into

Lexical Field of Medical: “a resident”, “a patient’s pancreatic ooze“, “heart”, “spent muscle”

Concrete Nouns: “ooze” , “fingers”, “heart”, “muscle“ - Sensory - Reduced to the human body

systole, diastole. I hear the same whisper facing myself in the mirror, channelled through the single grey hair I know is there

Lexical Field of Medical: “systole , diastole”

“systole , diastole” - Cardial cycle, Cycle of life, Saves lives, process

Lexical Field of trying to channel life: “channelled”

Lexical Field of The Body: “single grey hair”

“single grey hair” - Aging, Life - Fragile/vulnerable

but lose track of, the bruise on my hip that came from nowhere but had me limping for days: reminders that each day is a coin //

from an undisclosed fortune,

Lexical Field of trying to channel life: “lose track of”

“lose track of” - Aging, Life

Lexical Field of Medical: bruise - Fragile/vulnerable

Lexical Field of The Body: “hip” , “limping”

“days:” - Colon/Caesura

“coin” - Metaphor - Life is precious/valuable - Literal and metaphorical

“from an undisclosed fortune” - You don’t know how many days you have left - Literal and metaphorical

“fortune“ - Extended metaphor of life - Tresure, More than you can imagine

that while U’ve never held my lover’s heart in my hands, never had to stem loosed and wayward blood,

Lexical field of the body - “heart“ - Struggle, loss - Cycle (Structure)

Lexical Field of Medical: “stem” , “blood”

or force breath back into place, one day, it might come to this

Lexical Field of The Body: “breath“

Lexical Field of controlling life: “back into place”

“might” - Doesn’t want to accept, but pain/ loss and death is inevitable

“this” - Mortality, life is unpredictable