Amy Riddell

Say amen to the prayer of the scalpel

seeking our anatomy’s
deepest place,

the surgical soul
where my husband’s cancer

grows among a screaming choir
of nerves,

free will muted
in the antiseptic chamber

the surgeon venturing there now
in the grip of faith,

my darling wide-eyed upon
the altar of ego,

ten-fingered god
of this temple.

Amy Riddell is the author of Bullets in the Jewelry Box (FutureCycle Press 2012) and a chapbook Narcissistic Injury (Pudding House, 2009). Her work has appeared in such journals as Prairie Schooner, Black Warrior Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review.