I couldn’t spend even a minute today crystalizing even one thought. My friends had arrived on a redeye – that was the most I remembered because their visit went by in a blur. I had spent Sunday morning at the hospital listening to a doctor tell me what I already knew about my mother – he was personable, his words filled me with more sadness. I spent Monday like most Monday’s bewilderly busy and wondering how I was going to leave on my trip the next day with so much that had to be done before I could sleep. Then I had a moment to write and to think and my mind just stood there – not thinking. So I read this poem and found it compelling in the way perhaps a Mark Strand poem can be compelling:<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n Today I went to the doctor\u2014 What have you done to your body, her silence says. She’s a young woman; the stiff white coat disguises her body. behind her desk, with her diploma over her head, No one taught me how to care for my body. The doctor looks at me\u2014 There’s a trap-door here, and through that door, The doctor knows this. She has her books, And I pocket it, a sign to go. She was crazy to come here, And she takes off that white coat: To get born, your body makes a pact with death, You get into bed alone. Maybe you sleep, maybe you never wake up.A Slip of Paper<\/h4>\n
\nthe doctor said I was dying,
\nnot in those words, but when I said it
\nshe didn’t deny it\u2014<\/p>\n
\nWe gave it to you and look what you did to it,
\nhow you abused it.
\nI’m not talking only of cigarettes, she says,
\nbut also of poor diet, of drink.<\/p>\n
\nHer hair’s pulled back, the little female wisps
\nsuppressed by a dark band. She’s not at ease here,<\/p>\n
\nreading a list of numbers in columns,
\nsome flagged for her attention.
\nHer spine’s straight also, showing no feeling.<\/p>\n
\nYou grow up watched by your mother or grandmother.
\nOnce you’re free of them, your wife takes over, but she’s nervous,
\nshe doesn’t go too far. So this body I have,
\nthat the doctor blames me for\u2014it’s always been supervised by women,
\nand let me tell you, they left a lot out.<\/p>\n
\nbetween us, a stack of books and folders.
\nExcept for us, the clinic’s empty.<\/p>\n
\nthe country of the dead. And the living push you through,
\nthey want you there first, ahead of them.<\/p>\n
\nI have my cigarettes. Finally
\nshe writes something on a slip of paper.
\nThis will help your blood pressure, she says.<\/p>\n
\nAnd once I’m outside, I tear it up, like a ticket to the other world.<\/p>\n
\na place where she knows no one.
\nShe’s alone; she has no wedding ring.
\nShe goes home alone, to her place outside the village.
\nAnd she has her one glass of wine a day,
\nher dinner that isn’t a dinner.<\/p>\n
\nbetween that coat and her body,
\nthere’s just a thin layer of cotton.
\nAnd at some point, that comes off too.<\/p>\n
\nand from that moment, all it tries to do is cheat\u2014<\/p>\n
\nBut for a long time you hear every sound.
\nIt’s a night like any summer night; the dark never comes.<\/p>\n