four a.m.
Sitting in a gray-green swivel chair, white clogs cockeyed on aching feet, head scratchine, eye rubbing, yawning...A co-worker and I just shared chocolate pie with a spoon. And I'm contemplating the word "petulant" as a catch-all phrase to describe a myriad of sins we commit against each other. My tailbone burns from walking these darkened hallways like Florence Nightingale's ghost, phantasmagoric in mauve scrubs, shaking you awake to place a thermometer probe in an exposed ear as if it really made a difference. An it doesn't feel worthwhile unless pain pills are involved in the barter.
My mind drifts from pain pills to cardboard boxes...and I picture you standing in line at a soup kitchen with a thin jacket on in the winter snow, shivering and too proud to eat my cooking. And I am minutes away as I dice carrots for homemade stew in a heated kitchen at a place I call home. But that portion of my heart that belongs to you won't thaw or heal with either time or cooking. My stew will never make it past your lips.
My thoughts are not at home under these glaring incandescent exam lights. I am thinking about your petulance on the phone tonight when you accused me of blowing you off when I got busy...and my nursing skills flail behind me akimbo like the arms and legs of a dizzy child on a merry-go-round...though uncertainty is our ride of choice, our unknown X axis.
I was never afraid of heights, just lows. I'd like to say, "Baby, it will be okay" but at
four a.m.
all I can say without lying is, "I am here."