Monday, February 21, 2005
You're deaf and you can't knowA farm hand has needed no words
to know when to plant or when to plow under.
You hear only every other word;
sixth-grade learning cannot grasp the others.
No family comes and no friend translates
myelophthistic or process, those lifeless words
for your bummed-out, burnt-out, just plain dead bone marrow.
But you know just the same.
More white blood cells crowd in your bladder
than must muster in your blood.
"We're fighting the infection in your heart,"
I had told you loudly.
Your bald head had nodded in return.
Antibiotics, the latest, the best,
the most expensive, drip from one bag.
They will do you no good without other defenses.
Your last harvest is in. I haven't told you that
but you know just the same.
Two o'clock in the morning,
lights are dim on the ward.
Your tan is washed out, your pressure is low.
Blood pours from the other bag,
but only makes for more bruises.
"This crisis will pass, the last counts look better,
we've bought some time" I say to myself.
You don't know what I know
but you know what I do not.
Your eyes follow mine
as they look at the bags,
take in your signs, find the new labs,
recast your odds. I take a new breath;
it isn't even a sigh.
You can't hear a sound if sounds are not made,
can't hear me weep if I do not cry.
Your hands, hard-callused and old,
reach for my shoulder, hold it a while.
"You can't win them all, doc,
you can't win them all."
You're deaf and you can't know
but you know just the same.
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