You, anointed
Touched and prayed over
You knelt
And I waited
For a verdict from God.
Is this how He gets us to bow? I thought.
Is this it?
You, asleep
Artificially, numb
I watched our daughter
On the waiting room floor
Peacefully chewing her foot
And I wondered
How much a kidney weighs.
You, weak
Unable to move
You listened to books
Tried not to throw up
While I helped you, you skeleton
Back to the chair
And I counted your pills again.
You, learning
Needle prodded
"You're holding your breath," they said.
"You just have to breathe."
They said trials, scans, side effects
I looked up words I didn't want to understand
And I dutifully wrote it all down.
You, mending
Your flesh again moving
I touched your new stripe
Your diagonal memory
Your body awake again
Torn, but alive --
That's what restarted time.
Time I'd captured and numbed
Now shook off its sleep
It tore itself loose
And drunk with its freedom
Time, gleefully mad
Unfurled every future
I'd kept from imagining.
You reappeared then
Reattached to the earth
Whole lives filled with you
You, with skin, blood, lungs, heart
You, multiplied in time folded crossways
Crashed in on me that night.
That's why I cried.
