Survival

Chronic  illness, two young ravens, one precise inking of choice.
Scene set spring, Chicago:  longest winter in a decade, sickest summer of her life.

She sat in green glass glaze of northern suburbs over tea/overtime/overview with best of 
friends:
she colored in the lines of diagnosis---
MS maybe, no, not HIV ('exactly', doctor said, not AIDS 'exactly')

(What exactly? failing liver, needled limbs, strangely banded neuron clumping at gray 
base of sharp scanned brain.)

They sat in that cliché of suburbs, deck chairs and lemonade, swingsets and fences and 
dogs in the yard.  

They sat voiceless with wondering, watching the two black birds sizing her up with tense 
skill.  

She drew her own conclusions, chalked a crooked course tangential, 
Followed mystery flight through totems, chose another day to die. 

Now she's first in the line for the flu shot,
Months of bronchitis, 
Splints her own fractures and watches the sky.