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Word gets around at Edward Hospital

Christian Century, August 9, 2003 by Joseph Gastiger 

Word gets around
at Edward Hospital

   Tracing my cross on Tony's brow,
   I get to sing him
   Jesus loves you,
   tell him
   God's ready to take you in his arms.

   Outside, I smell the mock orange
   whose blossoms are purses
   of the smallest prince,
   the bells of bees.

   Old men whisper for tall daughters
   out of hiding places
   I could never understand.

   Black bile
   speckles their silvery lips.

   When Holly squirms,
   tugs at the IV drip,
   her barefoot mother strokes her.
   Oh you are wonderful at this, I say.

   No sleep, she explains,
   as she shrugs into tears.

   A darling monster
   half a face
   softer than spoiled
   windfall fruit.

   I know
   from such a mouth
   no word can come out right.

   The girl's gone blind.

   Surgeons rebuild her spine
   but how much does she--

   Look--
   the boy she loves next door--
   he's come
   to donate blood--

   Fourteen years old and she sobs
   for more cold mashed potatoes;
   I steady her spoon
   until Monika hovers with morphine
   just in time.

   What do they tell me
   after midnight
   breathless men
   my father's age?
   What do they so want to explain

   they damn near drown?

   I never hated
   nobody, till my feet got so bad ...
   Those Greek tomatoes, boy
   they're out of this world ...

   Way back along the creek,
   I could find robins all year-round.
   Snow never drifted there.
   Like winter never came ...

   When I got shot down in New Guinea
   men in feathers asked two things:
   What is it, male or female,
   plus
   what does it eat?

   Asleep, the moon faces of incurables:
   buddhas on steroids

   Just before daybreak's
   the best light

   to slip a diamond from her finger.

   Bangles and loops--
   intimate gold when someone dies.

   Treasures
   still wet with her last oil,
   I tuck them softly in a sack.

   Never have I touched anyone so tenderly--

   to give to the oldest son
   or a daughter at dawn.
COPYRIGHT 2003 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
 

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