branches fracture sky
as trunks erupt from boulders
outcropped among the green
ascending from soil
and descending from cloud
behind the fluorescent glare
on the glass in the frame
in the X-Ray waiting room,
where I am with mismatched
socks to have the doctor
look at my toe with its odd
nail bed (perhaps ingrown,
perhaps infected), which I
happened to mangle last week
in an attempt to fix myself

-Nicholas Michael Ravnikar