New Poem: Savior

"Savior"

She eventually became resigned to his routine,
the way he'd mostly keep his distance,
nostrils pinched retaliating against her obtrusive odor,
as if he was antagonized by her audacity
 in allowing her body's toxins to putrefy and waft up to his stature,
and he'd stand just off the foot of her bed,
as if he thought she was a breeding ground
for some raging sheet-leaping leprosy,
able to infect tall men in a single bound.
On some days, though, he'd descend to her level,
the quickening tempo of an emphatic mechanical beeping
and the scarcely perceptible flutter of her eyelashes,
the only acknowledgements to his presence she'd deign to share.
On these days, he'd bestow a blessing sheathed in powdered latex,
wiping to the floor the fallen straw strands decaying on her brow,
his face momentarily tugged into the softer expression of self-adulation,
patting himself on the back for charity towards an afflicted wretch,
and she imagined she could make a broom from the hair
sweep away the life she had until the floor was as sterile and boring
as the eggshell walls of the prison keeping her alive.

He probably thought himself a god, delivering his judgment
in measured rhythmic cadence, lulling even the most anxious
of his followers into hackneyed obedience,
or at least a prophet backlit in nurses' station lights,
standing above a congregation that clung desperately
to his every syllable, as if the commands escaping his supple lips
could lead them to salvation.
But she had no Faith,
and saw in his eyes the dull fade of genteel indifference
towards a dying woman,
and the front lines of his clinical detachment,
impenetrably defended by an outstretched clipboard and bleached white coat:
Angel of Mercy, Angel of Death,
it didn't matter which armor the reaper wore,
it was all the same.

And so she listened, she listened,
she shut her eyes to the fluorescence
reflecting off his coat and pursed her lips,
absorbing the prognosis nonsense he spewed,
a false God searing her retinas and mocking her hope,
with each flinch at the sound of possible treatment:
12 pills 3 times a day, chemo, radiation
she grew more assured, she would not be blind
grasping at Free Will,
the Antichrist dressed in white and she would not be fooled,
she would not take his hand and be led down the path of false expectation,
but with life dangling in plastic nooses from her arms,
and Death disguised, teasing her from the doorway,
she could only listen,
resigned to his routine.

© 2012. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.