The Intensive Care Cafe


We brought you in and they laid you out
On a gurney next to an angry man
Whose sister wouldn't shut up.
The curtain between you was no match
For her fear and his impatience.
Was it his gallbladder again?
You were dying quietly.

The priest had to turn around on the Merritt,
To come back for last rites.
I went for coffee like everything was normal.
The sign in the basement said
"Intensive Care," with an arrow,
and "Cafe" underneath it.
I brought you back a joke.
"Here's coffee from the Intensive Care Cafe,"
Forgetting you don't find me funny
In the best of times.

I rub your feet and you like that;
Dutiful instead of smart-ass.
I think about going into labor
In Barnes and Noble at Christmastime;
You trying to drag me out by the arm,
Me still shopping.
"I've been through this before," I tell you,
"Don't panic."
Now I try taking my own advice
While your oxygen level refuses to light up the monitor.
I'm mistrusting everybody here for you.
Your golf shoes, the grandkids, your black Lincoln,
Are all in the parking-lot, waiting