Heart attack.
Attack of the heart
turning traitor against its fellow organs:
brain, bowel, lungs, liver.
Merciless heart twisting in spasms
shooting fire down the arms and legs
a lump of lead, a band of unyielding iron
constricting the chest.
I watch doctors
wheel the men down the halls, one after another,
each man lying wan and smooth under the white blankets
tubes trailing behind on wobble-wheeled stands
a parade of averted death.
My father lies draped in plastic spaghetti
pumps bubbling water like a chorus of fish tanks
his skin yellowed, chin to ankle, from the sterile wash
his eyes flickering when I speak to him.
In a few hours he'll open them, stir, shift,
ask for water, ask to roll over, ask for a back rub,
press the red call button until the nurses raise their eyebrows.
But now he's just this immobile receptacle
of tubes red with blood, of electrodes measuring his beat
in silent green oscillations.
Watching him, I wonder
when the other organs will submit to the propaganda
circulated by the heart:
You're old, you're tired, you've had enough!
Give it a rest.
Let go.
Or when the insiduous invaders, with their gradual intrusion,
will pay a cancerous call to a kidney or gland
and bring him to this white-robed nightmare again.
How long will he fight himself
when his body no longer needs to live?
His look, his exacting eye, his sharp tongue and unyielding will
have already passed into me, into my daughter,
into sons and daughters, tumbling grandchildren:
why keep the empty decanter when the new bottle's full?
Watching him struggle against his own body
I wonder which of my own organs wait to turn truant,
sneak off in the night without a word,
leave a note on the pillow: Sorry.
In the quiet night
I can hear my breath whistling down my throat.
6/13/96