THE PATIENT WHO CHANGED MY LIFE A Wising Up Web Anthology PART I: RESONANCE
KATHLEEN M. KELLEY
IF I COULD PAINT THEM for Susan and Karl
The curtain has been drawn
around the bed, the light so dim,
when I enter the hospital room,
I think for a moment
I might be too late.
But I look behind the curtain
and see the man asleep in the recliner,
wearingblue hospital pajamas
and facing the wall.
The woman is in the bed,
her head at its foot
so that she too, sleeping
in her street clothes, faces the wall.
And just for a minute
I become confused
about which one is the patient:
they have pushed the bed and the recliner
as close together as possible
and sleep now, looking somehow pleased
with themselves,
and holding hands.
Indeed, they are up against a wall,
And yet, if I could paint them,
I would not paint them as prisoners of any cruel fate
that could rob them only of time,
for which they care little.
I would paint them as children
happy just being together,
in spite of allthat has happened,
in spite of all that is to come.
WE GO A LITTLE OVER THE HOUR
What pained me most
about my mother's wintry gift
for silent, long suffering,
its loneliness.
My client has written a poem for today about her own mother, what she remembers:
the warm conversation on their last morning,
the casual way she got in the car,
the truck driver's failed brakes,
his phone call to her family,
(his name, when I ask, gone up in smoke),
the fatal rumor spreading through the schoolyard,
her classmates holding their breath,
the hole burned into the highway,
and afterwards, under her tires,
the daily bump left from a clumsy repair.
What remained, gift of the coroner:
ash burned into a wedding ring.
For her father's sake she scoured it,
though it would not come clean.
And under the bed, Christmas presents,
children's names on unwrapped boxes:
Virginia, Catherine, Peter,
Matthew, Jonathan, Marie.
As we speak it is quiet and her face is flushed.
She is rocking and the clock is ticking.
Memories wrap us like ribbon
and my heart quivers.
People ask how I bear
listening to endless sorrow.
All I can say: it makes a difference.
I can listen to all of it,
and also take the time we need
to read her poem out loud,
though we go a little over the hour.
"We Go A Little Over the Hour" was anthologized in a slightly different form in Women's Encounters with the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper (Haworth Press, 2002).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
If I Could Paint Them Who is being restored by the image of the couple in the
hospital room?
What story can you imagine that starts with a healthcare professional taking
this image into their own life story as a reflection or counterpoint?
We Go a Little Over the Hour How do we decide with whom or why to go a little over the
hour?
Kathleen Kelley resides in
western Massachusetts where she lives in a co-housing community, works as a
hospice social worker, spends as much time as possible in nature, and writes
poetry, memoir, and essays.Her work has appeared in Peregrine, The
Equinox, The Sun, Many Hands, The Green Fuse,
Evergreen Chronicles, Mediphores,
and Earth's Daughters.She was the recipient of the 2008 Anderbo Poetry
Prize.
