Dialysis by Floyd Skloot - The New Criterion

Poems

December 1999

Dialysis

Burke

was right!

In my brother’s blind and dying
eyes I was forever young.
He rocked and slept to the sound
of my voice as long as memory
played its tune. Then he woke
to speak of vast silver platters
heaped with meat and bouquets
of cheese, hot loaves the way
we found them on the island.
He said my breath had carried
the dream along. We were back
to back again in the Valiant’s
front seat, doors gaping and feet
on the seething summer streets
of Flatbush. As his eyes closed
and sullied blood spun in loops
of plastic tubing, I watched
my brother closing down his life.
Time fell apart in his mind,
leaving nowhere but the past
for him to live. His will to sit
through this ritual cleansing
weakened as each day blended
until only sleep remained.

Floyd Skloot

Events

November 09 2009

YOUNG FRIENDS: Tour of an important contemporary art collection

more details

November 24 2009

OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading

more details

December 02 2009

Friends Event: The Swallow Anthology Reading

more details

Webcasts

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 3
"The State and the Threat to Democracy" by Jeremy Black and "The Paradox of the Intellectual and the Future of Capitalism" by Tim Congdon, Recorded on 9/25/2009

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 2
"Nice 'N' Easy: The Age of Micro Tyranny" by Mark Steyn, Recorded on 9/25/2009

Weblog

The death of attention

by Michael Weiss

Nov 07, 2009 02:26 PM

God Bless

by James Bowman

Nov 05, 2009 06:05 PM

The New Criterion

Poems

Events

Webcasts

RSS feeds