Laura Merleau: Smash

Out of luck and money

The drugs ran into the tens

Of thousands of dollars

Not to mention the search

For self which went

Nowhere then around a

Bend and, privately, many

Doctors believed you were

Little help to the great

White wall they lifted

Only to find another

White wall behind it in

Your mind, your mind

Learning to play a new

Instrument, laughing,

What is required to keep

The brain doing the

Miraculous–within

A week, the huge mass,

This four-to-five-inch

Mass, would have disappeared

Too if only, if only, if

Only the bridge that

Carried your ancestors

Over their troubled

Waters were as well-

Constructed as the rocks

And ice upon which

Each and every cell

Fell to each and every

Cell’s silent sum

Of its mantras