Thursday, December 25, 2008

Hospital

Taste the bitter ringing of the words the doctor tells you

When it's cancer, the one and only cancer..... sir?

 

And there's no cure nor answer but the grace of god, the face of god

Who smiles benevolently in an instant...

 

And cruely in the next...

 

And the iodine kiss of white halls and chairs not padded enough

To make the hours bearable.....

 

That cold caress is familiar to my senses...

 

And "Mr." or "Mrs." breaks the silence, and everyone tenses and a surname follows.

 

And it isn't yours.

 

Many times this process is repeated, and the many bleak and seated we,

Who could sharpen knives with our teeth, we wait like flocked and timid sheep

With imminent grief and highstrung breakdown casting shadows miles long.

 

 

We wait

 

 

 Bitter joke it is that we patients, have so little of it now

When virtues start looking like golden tickets to heaven...

 

Hours pass and Smith and Smythe and A to Z, rise slow, begrudgingly

They pause and look around, they look at me

They look to see if I exhale, relief and stale cold terror set to wait once more...

But I'm staring at my shoes, betraying none,

Because I can't lose this focus I'm holding or I'll bolt, straight for the door

 

I'm sitting frozen, zombie still and I could kill for an answer....

 

Did she survive the operation?......

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