I am
Sweaty
Grimy
Fat
Angry
Just getting up in the morning
I want this month to end
Before I say or do something I’ll regret
I can’t have a good day at work
Or even a decent day at home
When I start out wanting to disappear
Run to the north
Run to the forest
Just keep running until I am
Dry
Clean
Thin
Happy
Ready to deal with all the people
I [...]
The thin balding doctor
Brilliant they say
Flush with his degree
From the University of Nevada – Reno
Tut-tuts me about my weight
And runs all of usual tests
Extracts and measures my blood
To confirm that my fatness
Is killing me
But my cholesterol is low
Not high
Too low
He tells me
The good cholesterol
Has nary a toehold
In my system
Diet and exercise
You self-deluded porker
To raise [...]
The big-headed heard of small children
Tramples past me
Echoing shouts and threats and pleadings
For the small world enders that they see
And that I wish I could recapture
Just to judge if I have grown at all inside
Since the little shocks and horrors of a new world
Tripped over my untied shoelaces
And my unkempt, unpopular, unhappy, unabashed
Misanthropy of a [...]
My wife and I spent Thanksgiving
In the kitchen with my Dad
Snacking on the food her family had provided
Talking about options
And the inevitable
Threatened
Move to a new hospital
The original hospital was ill equipped
For this long and intense a stay
Between MRSA
And a tracheotomy
And the dangers
Of a slow awakening
From a long coma
She was going to have to move
And we [...]
One night at the hospital
I watched it snow
Which in Tucson is a next to never event
I felt bad because my mother
Couldn’t see it through the reflection
Of the lights in the room
And I had to describe it for her
Falling down and collecting on the windshield
Of my
And every other
Car out there
Light snowfall
Are natural attractions
But in the room [...]
At some point
My mother started to confuse
The hospital with home
Thinking the view from the window
Was the backyard
And not the parking lot
I would gently remind her
That we were in the hospital
And the nurses were not in the next room
But patrolling an overcrowded hall
Which is why they took so long
To respond to her pressing
The button
Sometimes the Xanax
And [...]
The holidays kept passing
Christmas and New Years
MLK and Groundhog Day
The cycle continued on
Gloves and gowns
Uncomfortable chairs
Forced visits to the waiting room
Eventually we moved hospitals again
This one was supposed to help her
Get off the respirator
Remove the trach tube
Get her walking
It was closer to home
And more family friendly
We could camp out there like we did
At the first [...]
The first hospital was inadequate
Was ill-equipped
Was too specialized
And so we had to move
To the big mega-hospitalopolis
Designed to care for any
And every problem
With equal disdain
For each and every person
Who walked through its doors
The new hospital was not designed for family
Or for visitors
Or for anything besides
Treating the body
The spirit is an issue
Of little or no concern
Outside of [...]
Her brain awoke in advance of her body
I don’t know how long she was awake
Before she could open he eyes
But that was the extent of it
For quite a wile
That and a small curl of the toes
A nervous twitch for the feet
She was trapped
Awake in her unmoving body
She stared at me and I
Stared back
Smiled as much [...]
The rule was that we would not leave her alone
Someone would always be there
My mother would not
Could not
Die unless she was alone
So we took shifts
For four hours a day it was my time
So sit with her sleeping shell
Listening to the respirator
Inflate
And deflate her chest
Listening to the alarms
When her breath
Or her heart
Failed to make the next [...]
