As I reached for a door, about to leave the ward,
The words of his distress pierced my hearing,
On their way to a stab of my heart.
“I can’t understand why
I can’t go home with you.”
I turned to catch the look on his face.
*
I patiently reiterated the truths of our situation,
Just as before, and just as before
I heard myself fall flat, fall short.
He wasn’t demanding information.
Rather, he was hurt.
His husband needed to know.
*
I practiced my wisdom on the nutritionist:
“For some of us the hospital is kryptonite. Russ is one.
With incessant procedure, day in, week out,
The specialists hacked his privacy, took his control.
On a third attempt, they forced down a feeding tube.
He finally lost his mind.”
*
“They took his mind.
Then, they took his leg.
Now, at the point of no return,
Suddenly, it’s hands off. He’s shunted aside.”
The dear nutritionist was too astonished to speak.
I have scant filter, little sense I am inappropriate.
*
Back with Russ, I waited for the rig to hospice.
Delayed.
I put my hand into his and took a picture.
I wanted to remember those bruises,
The tape, the gauze half on, half off,
As if it no longer mattered.
*
We should have signed a waiver and left on day three,
The brain bleed stopped. Russ could still step with a walker.
We shouldn’t have brainwashed ourselves,
That we didn’t know enough
Because we lacked degrees, vocabulary,
And a standing in their world.
+
Each night, Russ became almost feral,
Trying to pull out the tubing and bolt.
Did the nurses come to hate him?
All along, he had the right instincts
And I did not. I was wrong, dead wrong.
Cowed, yet again I lacked the courage to be.
*
How galling.
*
*
As so often before, I am alone with my pen,
In lieu of those who once spurned me,
In lieu of the husband who would have me to hold me.
Poetry, God’s recompense
For the man who has nothing,
For the fool who has failed to perform on God’s cue.
*
I use my pen for a leg up,
Hoisting myself into the hayloft of Heaven
To see the view out.
But, as the colors of His inspirations fade,
I lose the leg of my pen on the paper.
I lose my ability to perceive.
*
Tonight, I ask only questions without answer:
“Russ, once I escape, where is our rendezvous?
Then, from there, where to?”
*
*
Steven Golden
June -July, 2023.
stevengoldenpoetry 