Last night, watching the reality TV show, marvelling
at the array of patient issues—stabbings, overdoses,
malaria that can kill, cyclist hit, pedestrian hit, a
flailing foul-mouthed drunk—each with a short
update later in the show and then—the last one—
a guy in his early sixties like us, who, diagnosed
with a form of lymphoma and told it had a 70%
cure rate, suddenly had a heart attack and looked
dead but was brought in because a faint pulse was
detected—then none—CPR—now a pulse again
but then fading, finally his wife called in and the
family doctor, all the staff around this white-headed
buddha-bellied man with the grey-tufted chest  
hair cresting like smoke signals from a dying fire
and the doc in charge saying they could do no more,
his body wasn’t responding, then taking the tube
out of his mouth to make him more comfortable and
telling his wife to hold his hand and everyone standing
silently, the woman weeping, thanking the staff for
all they had tried, the man mostly naked lying there,
my husband and I on the couch with a box of Kleenex
knowing exactly what the other was thinking
and him not a handholder but he let me hold his
until the show was finally over.

After being longlisted a couple of years ago in The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition (one of 108 out of 16,729 poems) this poem was finally published back in February of this year in “Loss” – Lifespan Vol. 9 – an anthology put out by Pure Slush Books, with thanks to editor Matt Potter. Because the poem was split over two pages in the book, it was difficult to present it properly by snapping a photo and anyway, above is its proper format. Thanks for reading!