There’s been some ‘complications;’
so I’m shown into a room
where they tell me:
‘It’s like a deep sleep.’
Then they bring me in and
I see you
and I see what they mean.
And I swear
I’ll never close my eyes again
‘til you open yours.
Eyes peeled
days and nights,
the world’s suspended,
the end: open-ended;
so I pray to any (and every)
god, angel; demon.
That you open your eyes again;
I dream on.
Rainforest symphony
of beeping life-support machines
walls stained with ‘Intensive Care Unit’
broken dreams.
I beg for one more chance to say:
‘I love you’
to say
‘I’m sorry;’
‘Thank you;’
‘I’m here;’
‘I see you;’
and not this cut-up body
covered-up, tubed-in and wire-laden
inside the ICU.
Wish I could show you we’re still together
even though you’re gone.
‘She’s on full support,’ they say,
arms out, palms up,
nurses look blurry
through eyes fogged up.
We both live a slow death
inside the final ward,
where respirator’s violent blows
blast your chest as if from below
and every passing second crawls
and yet hours, days -and a lifetime- draws
closer and closer
to a stall.
‘Perfusion,’ ‘infection,’ ‘analysis,’ ‘dialysis,’ new disease;
My heart breaks again, and again
then it tears long and deep it bleeds
with every new term.
‘Have you got kids?’
they ask.
‘No’
I murmur with deep regret.
‘Oh good’
is their insane reply;
but I know they’re right
-at least our kids won’t watch you die.
‘One ventricle is showing signs of strain.’
they tell me, yet again.
‘She’s a collapsed lung,’
and I wonder how long
you’ve got,
we’ve got.
And I talk to you.
And I wait for you.
Om Triyambakam…
I do what I can,
and I’ll accept anything,
except what’s actually happening.
In the movies, patients just wake up;
but real life is real death,
and you just hang by a thread
while other ‘coma’s’ in nearby beds
beep-out daily instead.
At night, outside,
a Siva moon
shines her spotlight
on my doom.
I curse our stars and wait
for our turn,
but it doesn’t come…
And one day,
they say,
-as if remarking on the weather-
‘Yeah; she’s responding to the treatment,’
and somehow, I escape bereavement.
Eventually,
I get to see you
open your eyes and leave the I.C.U.
Copyright © Francisco Rebollo 2014
