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The News

The scene was written 
In advance, 
Rehearsed as often 
As the days of waiting 
Would allow. 

The curtains of sedation 
Would be parted to reveal 
My husband’s face, 
The good news broadcast 
From his eyes, 
Voice buoyant with the word, 
Among the loveliest bequeathed 
By Roman tongue to Saxon -— 
Benign: 
                  Of a kind disposition; 
                  Manifesting gentleness and mildness; 
                  Tending to promote well-being; 
                  Beneficial. 

And I would bathe 
The hard, brusque pillow 
With some grateful tears, 
Burrow into healing sleep, 
And wake to life resumed. 

Instead, 
Along the timeless, lightless hours 
Spanning days and nights indifferently, 
The sluggish curtain lifted, 
Hesitated, 
Fell, 
And lurched again, 
Three times allowing glimpses 
Of a vision so unwelcome 
That narcosis masqueraded ably 
As a fair seducer, 
Come to lure me back. 

The face was right, 
The eyes were there, 
The voice. 
The word was wrong. 
Malignant: 
                  Showing great malevolence; 
                  Actively evil in nature; 
                  Threatening to life or health; 
                  Deadly. 

The third time, 
The drug had lost its power 
To be kind. 
I knew. 
Each morning I would wake 
And know again, 
And mornings would become a year 
In which this once familiar body, 
Turned traitor 
Only halfway through the course, 
Would be a battleground. 

The cue was wrong for tears. 
They waited, prisoners behind 
A hard tube filling up 
The passageway of sound. 
So pain became 
The gaoler of grief, 
And I lay silently, 
Rewriting.

The Reason

Still pain-weak 
From the knife’s first battle blow, 
I cringed from combat 
Yet to come. 
“I can’t,” I told the doctor. 

“Shall I tell you 
Why you will? 
Because I trust you —
And because you have three kids. 
You will do it 
For them.” 

He knew the facts, 
My mind supplied the details. 

Laura, 
Self-conscious in her young nubility 
And lean, unfinished beauty; 
Taller by an inch or two than I, 
Pushing hard at childhood’s barrier, 
Woman-bound 
Upon an unfamiliar road; 

Danny, 
Brown and island-born, 
Leavening my life 
With limber wit, 
Small body housing 
An electric mind 
Too set upon material things, 
In need of tempering 
With compassion 
Through acquaintance with 
Another heritage; 

Andrew, 
Only recently entrusted 
To our care; 
Every stranger’s friend, 
Unable to withhold good will 
Or harness love; 
Trusting with a terrible totality 
The tenderness of life.

All ours by invitation, 
Guests of our longing, 
Entitled to the full-length, guided tour. 

I would. 

The Nurses

I will forget their names, 
But not the kind brown hands 
Applying dignity 
Along with soap and lotion; 
The quiet voices of experience, 
Soothing shock and terror 
With the balm perspective; 
The shoulder into which at last, 
The night I saw the truth 
Inscribed on paper 
In the correspondence 
Of consoling friends, 
I unleashed ten days’ hoard 
Of tears. 

Never mattered less 
The color of the hands, 
The accent of the voice. 
Never had I learned 
From solemn ceremony, 
Quilting bees, 
Or angry feminist crusades 
What helplessness and pain 
Taught me of sisterhood. 

The Hair

I always had some, 
Even in my youngest picture. 

After it had darkened, 
My parents told me how 
They once could hide a penny 
Of new copper there 
Among the strands.

It grew prolifically haphazard 
Down a shy and conscientious 
Schoolchild’s back, 
And hung below my waist 
In auburn ropes 
Plaited during every breakfast 
By my mother’s fingers. 
Once, 
I purposely released the bands 
And let the waves fall free 
Until the teacher 
Bound them back. 

At Easter, 
Armed with cotton rags, 
Like a determined healer 
Binding up some annual wound, 
My mother operated on a kitchen stool 
Until it hung in shampooed corkscrews, 
Ribboned to accentuate 
The spring’s new dress. 

At eleven, 
Sharp pain on the right became 
Three days of tossing 
In a hard hospital bed, 
While woven braids dissolved into 
A tangled nest I knew to be 
Beyond redemption. 
A kind nurse found me crying. 
Did it hurt so much? 
When I confessed 
The honest cause, 
She sat an hour beside me 
With a brush, 
And not the scissors I had feared. 

That summer 
As a sacrifice 
To junior high, 
I underwent a second surgery, 
And had them severed 
At the shoulders, 
To appear three decades later 
In a Christmas box 
Sent by my mother 
To my daughter.

When we met, 
My husband called it red. 
I grew it long again 
For him. 

Today I combed it, 
Clipped and brittle and drug-dead, 
Into a basket 
In the bathroom 
Of my mother’s home. 
And she, who placed the penny, 
Wrapped the rags, 
Preserved the plaits, 
Joined me in mourning. 

The Interloper

When my husband went to bed in summer, 
It was with another woman. 

I hardly envied her. 
She was less 
Than I had been in spring. 
Lighter by ten pounds, 
Thin and scarred and hollowed out, 
Not publicly or privately 
Definable as female. 

This time the doctor 
Was a lawyer, 
His only remedy 
The loving instinct 
Of a man two decades married. 

His sudden ardor 
For his strange new partner 
Was transparent, but 
Remarkably effective.

Chemotherapy

I learned trust early. 

At five, 
Banished at midnight 
To a winter bed, 
I heard sleigh bells, 
Not doubting the capacity 
Of narrow chimneys 
For portly, fur-clad gentlemen. 

At eight, 
In white, 
I yielded to the water 
In my father’s hands, 
Believing it would mean 
Salvation, 
As opposed to drowning. 

At nine, 
Clasping terror tightly 
As a life preserver, 
I plunged through ominous green waves 
Beneath a taut white plastic rope 
And found myself astonished — 
Standing, living, breathing — 
On the other side. 

I gave myself, 
And then my children, 
To the needles 
And the cherry-flavored drops 
Promising deliverance 
From the unseen killers 
Of my forebears’ children. 

Fortunate, 
For here I lie, 
Connected by a hollow needle 
And by thread-like coils of tube 
To hanging bottles filled, 
From all appearances, 
With water, 
Red Kool-Aid, 
And urine.

Sick with half sleep, 
I watch the measured rhythm 
In the tube, 
And think of Vishnu 
And of Shiva, 
Preserver and Destroyer 
In one essence, 
And trust the droplets 
That could carry death 
Into my waiting vein 
To carry life instead. 

Every Day

The grocery lists 
Still gather in my purse; 
We still run out of Kleenex 
And bus change. 
Wrestling matches 
Need a referee 
Before the tears begin. 
Thirteen still needs a reprimand 
For talking back, 
And four can’t make it 
Through the night 
Without a diaper. 
Milk spills; 
Shoe laces come untied. 
The phone still rings 
Ten minutes before dinner time 
To say he will be late, 
Or pass on one last bit 
Of junior high school gossip. 
Scout excursions, 
Broken bikes, 
Music lessons 
And a friend across the highway 
Still require 
My hand upon the wheel. 

August, as always, 
Is a surfeit of long, sultry days; 
September energizing 
In its crisp relief. 
Bedtime and rising time, 
The yellow bus,
The lunch bags that go with it, 
The homework that comes back. 
The daily ritual 
Of the evening meal; 
The tired kiss 
Across the pillows. 

The only difference is 
The value placed on days 
And hours 
And minutes 
By a stern reminder 
That supplies are limited. 

New England Country Graveyard on an Autumn Day

How much is spoken
By gray stone 
Where time and rain 
Have left it still articulate. 

Too often, 
As I stroll and read 
By mellow light 
Of mid-October, 
The message is 
The brevity of life. 

This one was someone’s wife, 
But only long enough 
To bear her man one child, 
To sleep beside her here. 

This one, 
Despite the promise 
And the strivings of a boy, 
Lived long enough to be a soldier — 
Never quite a man. 

This couple lie 
With tiny grass-bound slabs 
Strung like a rosary 
At the parental feet. 
How much life was left 
In hearts too often pierced
Before they followed to this place 
The children 
Whom they should have left behind? 

God, God! 
Not yet! 
Keep me longer 
From the darkness of those beds. 
And when the colors on these hills 
Are gone, and green, 
And gold again, 
Let me be here to see 
With open eyes 
And well-loved people 
Just a call away. 

The Future

None of us are born 
Believing we will die. 
Belief comes with experience, 
To some, soon; 
To all finally. 
The question is not whether, 
Only when and how. 

Faust-like, 
I want to bargain 
For more time, 
Even knowing 
The inevitable end, 
And believing that end to be 
A new beginning. 

Time for what? 
For caps and gowns 
And grandchildren? 
Yes, and years together 
With a faithful friend 
With time to talk again, 
And rest, 
And read; 
For seeing parents, 
Who gave me the beginning, 
Safely to the end; 
For weaving words together
In new ways, 
A try for immortality 
On perishable pages; 
For learning to make music 
With a bow; 
For feeding younger minds, 
And being fed by them. 

But children traveling 
The rocky road 
From childhood to adulthood 
Can inflict 
The bitterest wounds of all. 
For this? 
Promenades 
Down bleak hospital hallways, 
My awkward iron partner 
On my arm, 
Gave doorway visions of 
Poor heaps of bone 
And rough white hair 
Huddled on hard beds 
Which they would never leave 
Alive. 
For this? 

I do not fear 
The gateway or 
What lies beyond; 
Only, at times, 
The pathway leading there, 
And what may lie around 
The blind curves of each year, 
Each day. 

But that was understood 
When I applied. 

It’s a package offer, 
One to a customer, 
Sight unseen, 
Open one compartment daily, 
Take it or leave it. 

I’ll take it, 
Full size—
Please.