In Apache Junction
my great uncle is stung
by a small bark scorpion
after he pulls
his old washing machine
away from the wall.
His heart fails.
His wife finds him
dead in the mudroom
where a honeyed light
pours through the dusty window
over his old body.
She commands him to live
and he obeys
because he fears her
more than he fears God.
I’m starting to think
I can’t die
he tells me from the only chair
beside my father’s hospital bed.
And then a silence
opens between us.
And my father’s body,
glowing with radiation,
falls like a star right through it.
Daughter of Downwinders, II
