Love poem

My darling, I’ve plied the true and saving grace

amongst recalcitrant hearts, recidivist kidneys

that sing the chronic song, wiped tears from faces,

measured liver spans as if they were bridges

and I were always spanning to you, to you.

I remember looking out the window of the ICU

and seeing the world, gold and green, women

with strollers, cars and plash, and there was love:

leveraged as the fallback plan, the one line held

or damn the campaign, there being no other side

to join.

I’m tired. My hands were in ten bodies today,

but this morning, I rolled over bad-back griefs,

stirred by the early AM alarm, and spied your face:

impassive, gently breathing. There is no way

to lie there and not be Herculean: able to wish

the massive hospital away, able to touch your hair

and multiply the wishes to a thousand, falling wide

and long off the mark.

My darling bride, wield

your beauty as surpassing, as your say:

I walk to the hospital with recalcitrant heart,

with wishes dwindling to a to-do list

that prepares me for the OR, for the wards,

for that window where South Street peeks out

and Halifax could be any other day, a different precipice.

I could be another man, broad and limber, tall

and fierce, withstanding pain; but I’m a doctor,

with catheters in the dam, the plash of blood

and the plash of wishes long fallen wide,

off the mark we made.

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