needs a title

[fflo]

In my winter dream, one by one, I detach
each limb, remove the big bone,
look to the end for the sucking-out place
and extract the puzzle piece of hard marrow,
as if it’s venom, to try, in vain, to save myself, myself,

from the disease it turns out is in the last
of them, the fourth, which I see instantly is bad,
shrunken and black, and bitter.  The cavity
expands as I explore it, and on its wall
are a small aperture of lens, and a sign

telling me to push there to take my picture,
in this secret photo booth of my innerds.
The band-aid box nearby is equipped
with a note:  “If you’re seeing this,
you’re almost surely dead very soon.”

There must be, I then understand, some mechanism
like a postage-paid mailer in there too, and the idea's
to ready a snapshot of my face in farewell,
for sending to loved ones, now that I know, oh
no, this was not a good way to treat my illness.