—Renée Schell

O Pablo, write me an ode
to surgical steel.
Write me an ode
to titanium.

Let your Spanish seep
into my mother’s ear
like blood into gauze.

Her lilting voice breaks.
Her sentence has a hole.
Her thought has a hole.

The names of her grandchildren
are fused to the far side
of her brain.

Pry her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
Make her say “salt cellar.”
Help her say “surgery.”
Let her say “outcome.