I will pull a red-brown fist of flesh

out from behind my forehead

and from the curving back of my left eye

and the fingertips of my hand

and the fleshy pieces,

dripping pink liquid,

will congeal into

a glossy toxic cone

that I place on the open palm

of my other hand, blood

seeping through,

warm between my fingers.

The skin above my brows

-   that held the bloody blob in  -

will sag down

like empty pockets

turned inside-out

obstructing the vision

in my burning eyes.

I will push aside

the folds and flaps of skin

so I can load the pulsing shape

into a gun made especially

to shoot it 

to a place very far away 

where science and vaccines are valued.

My father had instructed

“Dig a hole to China”

and I imagined that if I dug far enough

I would reach light and sky and pull myself through

the long narrow hole from my backyard

a tunnel down, or up, and through the earth

to a whole different watercolor world, dreamy, easy.

I rest the gun down and I wipe

my hands on my jeans, like a kid,

and the residual liquid seeps

through to stain my skin.

The gun is big like an old-school blow dryer, shiny silver,

cool in my steady hands -

and I shoot the poison cone 

that came out of my head 

into an orbiting arc,

east, where  scientists catch it

and use it to create an antidote.

They will soak it

with a mixture of

milk and honey and serum 

made from dandelion.

The poison shape will dissolve

into a haze

of thin purple mist

and it will become a cloud that spreads

out and over with a strong wind

and the rain will soak the earth 

with something even better

that hasn’t been found yet

and no one seems to have a word for it.

But it will heal everyone

in faraway deserts, forests and farms

browning from drought;

in sun-choked cities and towns;

in all directions and reaching

into the oceans of a warming and war-torn earth;

and even here,

where hostility is an unspoken illness;

people will turn human again.

And only then I will

rest and rest and cry so hard

there will be a new river winding

over the rocky path where

I ran and climbed as a small child:

and all of the bad marrow feelings and illness

will dissipate into a faraway sky

of cornflower blues.