The Lichfield Angel

I am on my way to a CT scan

where I will accept a year’s worth

of x-rays so that the doctor can

see inside me where it hurts

With some concern, but more hope,

I wonder if they will see the place

where I have held things

for such a long time

Drawing hesitantly near

I happen upon a rose, its name

scrawled on a tattered note hanging askew, 

the Lichfield Angel

It speaks of light and mercy

and hard-scrabble and flint

and I bury my nose in the velvet folds

palest yellow with salmon edges.

In school, I learned, with some horror

that smelling is an act of union

a merging with a part which is also the sum

an ark bearing its source

So it is with full knowing that I invite

the rose, and the radiation,

to claim a seat in my body,

even as I ponder how best to let them go.