Katy Richey   HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE know your cardiovascular system know that blood travels to your brain ...........................by defying gravity know that an enlarged heart ...........................is a pressure cooker for systolic mishap know that arteries, veins, and capillaries ...........................do not get along know that water and salt levels ...........................will rise like hot air balloons know that there is no release for oxygen ...........................that has not mastered subtlety know that a brain attack ...........................is no cerebrovascular accident know that you will be thunderstruck ...........................and that love, ...........................like all hormone secreting tumors, ...........................is a treatable disease   HAIKU: EMPATHY the experience of a foreign consciousness burrows the brain...............slow QUESTIONS after the usual inquiry children? pregnant? sexual partner? to all of which i reluctantly answer no he sticks two fingers into ...............oblivion presses down to the flat of my back and asks does that hurt? i wonder was that a figurative or literal question? Judy Jashinsky Fisherwoman Collecting Seaweed mixed media on linen • 31" x 31" • 2006 see more work by Judy Jashinksy HALLUCINATION ..............You used to be in the shuffle of particular shoes, boots really, as they dragged young legs along concrete trailways. ..............Used to be part of morning meals synthetic syrup settling in oatmeal used to follow me into the bathroom clung like the scent of sleep. .............. You used to subsist in radio easy listening afternoons buried in the slow, tinkling riffs of sharp keys. .............. Used to be in the brake lights of boxy american cars every tap of foot to pedal a pulse of your heart. .............. You remain in water lingering in drying fountains seeping down the storm drain running nimbly ..............past sycamores     Katy Richey has performed poetry at venues in the Washington D.C. area including the 2006 Capital BookFest. She has written curriculum for the Montgomery County Public Schools ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Department including poetry and creative writing pathways. She currently teaches English in Silver Spring, Maryland.   Published in Volume 8, Number 2, Spring 2007.