OCTOBER 9/29/06

She’s just been to see the new doctor
(the one who’s suddenly worried about her)
But you can tell that she hasn’t begun
To take it seriously, you can tell.
By the way she clutches the scripts
That dictate sequences of exams.
Those sheets haven’t even
Penetrated her satchel
The news certainly hasn’t
Sunk into her brain.

So she’s off to see her doctor
(the one whose name
She frequently couples with
non medical mentions of her heart)
half skipping and all smiling
And re-noticing with fresh surprise
That the manhole covers
Outside NYU’s med center
are stamped “Made in India.”
Impish on auto and determined
To tease him for being reminded
Of her by manhole covers everyday.

Inside the Emergency Room
Where people are getting oxygen
And shots and IVs
She’s the lucky one
Who gets a kiss on the forehead.
She tosses her head
In feigned impatience
She swears to him
That she’s alright.
She asks for and receives
Another chaste kiss;
Becomes aware
Of their audience.
Says goodbye,
Says she’ll see him at home.

She gets chocolate truffles.
Reads the rest of a Clinton story
Takes the train home.
Walks upstairs. Checks e-mail.
Starts a poem. Also a book.
Collects the mail.
Jokes with the UPS man.
Plays with the neighbor’s bull mastiff
Says he’s grown to seven times
The size he was last month
And then still standing on the sidewalk,
In that hour when no matter
What she’s been doing
She always begins
To unconsciously wait.

Waiting
For her men
(interchangeably
Child-man
and Man-child)
to return home.
Waiting,
It strikes her that thoughts of
leaving them sad and without her,
Are the same as those past fears
Of being sad and without them.
Only then, the tears come
And she couldn’t be
more surprised
By this strange phenomenon
Of raspy cries and wet eyes
If she were just newly born.




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