Good morning, Rosemarie,
apologies for coming in without knocking,
but it looks like you’re sleeping soundly.
There you are on the table.
In my head, I’m giving you the script:
**Hi, I’m a medical student,
What brings you in today,** but I know
you aren’t speaking,
you couldn’t, even if you tried.
You don’t even know we’re here.
Rosemarie – I’m sorry we had to meet under such circumstances.
It’s not exactly inviting, is it?
Formaldehyde. Fluorescent light.
Us ten fresh-faced first-years
staring speechless at your unmoving body.
To be honest, I’m not listening to the lecturer.
In front of me, you’re not dead, but warm, sunlit, eyes wide.
I see your eighty summers in your tanned arms and sunburnt back,
and suddenly I wonder if you cherished the body you lived in.
I wonder if you hated it,
whether the constant swelling of your legs
made you wish for new ones,
whether the scars from procedure after procedure
made you hate doctors like us.
I wonder if you were worried
to place a pacemaker in your chest,
whether you were relieved or unsettled
by the presence of a cold, metal machine
that close to your warm, beating heart.
I place the cloth back over your face
**How are you sleeping lately? Does pain ever wake you up at night?**
I cut clumsy through layers of fat
**How is your appetite? Three meals a day?**
I slice the femoral artery in two,
and I kill you a second time.
Rosemarie – I’m sorry about that artery.
I’m sorry that vessel can no longer propel you
to crawl back into bed, wade into the river,
or walk down the aisle.
I’m sorry too that there is no blood to
rush wild through your heart’s four chambers,
as you run down the street with the other young girls,
shrieking with childhood joy.
I’m sorry that your knee can never again kneel
to pick up your child, or to plant the flowers
for which you were named.
Rosemarie, there is so much more I want to ask you,
but I fear I’ve already overstepped with my clamp and scalpel.
I’ll leave you in peace with your answers, your stories.
I hope you rest well.
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