JADON REMPEL

the condition

I have this dream where I am content,
very content in a small plaid room with
dark wood trim, I am writing the great
Canadian novel, but in truth I am having
a heart attack, family at my side crying
impatiently, waiting for me to dream a
flock of sirens into truth, I am writing

on an old Underwood typewriter, it dings
in perfect intervals like a metronome or
clockwork, at the apex of the story
the main character has been shot and
is dying in a comfortable place, very
comfortable, as family crowds around

they ask impossible questions like,
where does it hurt? who cut away the heart
chords? why did you drive the red car
against the guilty wall? the story starts
falling apart, my heart attack is breaking, the

machine, a twisted mess of transmission parts
and cigarette butts, the main character stops
bleeding and enters a room emptied of people
to where the Underwood sits, floor center,
echoes dinging faintly a song of distant sirens,
regardless of how fast or slow the approach,
or simple the touch, enough to jar a person
from a violence of place, or gently mist a
body into being