SISTER IBOGAINE

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Sister Ibogaine came through the wall
wearing a nurse’s cap made of static.
The doctor had a blank where history should be.
My chart was written in insect legs.

“Name?” she asked.
I gave her a motel key,
a dead telephone,
three dreams wrapped in gauze.

The ambulance kept circling the ceiling.
White sheets. Black wings.
A spoonful of jungle thunder
under the tongue of God.

“Lie still,” she said.
“The cure is older than the wound.”

Then the bed became a boat,
the ward became a river,
and every old hunger
stood up,
saluted,
and walked out backwards.