Terry Blackhawk

A Puzzle—after Rene Magritte’s “The Therapeutist”

Maybe he lost his body and they healed him with a cage.

Maybe his questions dissolved his brain.
Why is he called a survivor?
There is a brass drape over the headless shoulder

and a bird who considers entering its cage.
How peacefully the air must flow through him.

He has opened the cage and that fuzzy bird,

his heart,sits on the ledge looking in.
The head has sunk below his shoulders,

while on the far wall a weapon oozes blood.
He has left a space for the answers to our questions.
He has left a space for the whispers of children,

for belief in humanity,for our chance to take a stand.

The hand rests calmly on its walking stick.

The children still have questions.
Where do their gazes go?

Why doesn’t he have a body?

How can he smell the air?