Awaking Indigo
As pale indigo lightorphans shadows in my room
claimed by neither
night nor day, I wake.
Across town in the hospital
your love of fear sedated,
you labor under the oxygen mask
face calm, affirming surrender
attached to life's umbilical cord.
For whole moments, I think of escape,
of finding things to do to avoid
the centurion hours clearly laid out
to be my day's destiny
guarding your bedside.
All the cleaning to be done.
Or the untouched bills spilt
across table in silent complaint
could give purpose to knocking out an hour.
Someone will call if the end is here, I think,
but the end lives here now.
Instead, I go into the shower,
letting hard drops trample my skin
liquid shock-waves. It feels like life.
My body hairs rise in salute.
But it's too much.
Tears from me but
of sound outside myself
unleash deep and raw,
a coyote vicious
ripping flesh from bone.
All at once, I am the coyote,
also the prey. I weep
until no more tears come.
At the hospital, they wait for me.
In due time, the nurse wheels in a lamp
for soft mood lighting
and a radio playing Gospel music.
We are the ghosts around your bed,
taking turns at goodbye.
You cannot respond, largely unconscious,
floating morphine's lovely dream.
They remove the mask,
we stare you down with wait.
I suffer the naked shame
of a first-time voyeur
as if invading your privacy
is stripping away your life.
Long pulls in and out,
we humans do without thinking,
each breath: a gain, a loss.
The last came not as I envisioned
in one long, drawn-out sigh
but mere respiration held
as if you had all the time in the world,
a pebble across pond
skipping and flying long
the wind before immersion.
Then the short, final exhale,
a slight wave of air
passing over your tongue.
Without close attention,
I would have missed it.
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