Hospital Visit (Confessional Poetry)

Hospital Visit (Confessional Poetry)

The curtains are half closed around my bed, no one in the room, only my mother standing. And then finally, I see a sad countenance, it surprises me, I see my brother’s arrival, he seems guarded. Only two, years difference in age, I wonder what happened, have I: been her long. Empty minutes in my head, I feel absent but here — behind her eyes — she knows, he knows they look at the tubes in my chest watch it rise and fall in my casing, and try

to pretend all is well, nothing but sad eyes in her throat. Then, finally, she touches the bed railing to look into my face, deeper, she wants to cry, and holds it in — she can’t imagined medying before her, we are seeing each other, our humanity, the enduring of love.

#1705 2-27-2007


Note: there really are no words or ways to express certain looks people give you when they are weakened because of their love for you, in the time of disaster. They don’t quite know what to say, and you don’t know quite what to say, and how it should be said, if indeed, it must be said. I was in the hospital dying in 1994, a stroke and heart attack. In 2003, my mother was dying in the hospital, it all was reversed it seemed, 11-years later. I was angry she was going to die, my mother was sad I was going to die. Not sure which emotions are right or wrong, I don’t think any are, they are what they are, emotions, and simple as that. It is how we process them afterwards. I didn’t blame God, and I’m glad I didn’t, it would have been a mistake, I was angry simply because, it was easier than dealing with the hurt of the loss (we will all die some day). But it must all be worked out; I just thank God, he took my mother and gave her beautiful little eyes, and that I could see them in 1994, because I still see them; I hope she saw my eyes when I visited her in the hospital, without the anger.