A Paltry Petition to God

Brought up not to cry or pray,
I lay in ICU, tethered to rails of the bed,
attached to tubes and burping machines,
motionless, unable to utter a sound and
hadn't for weeks, as my lungs
filled up with putrid fluid.
Too limp to mark a plain white page,
I nodded for games of 'yes' and 'no,'
my body a harp without fingers or strings.
"We want to open your chest for a biopsy,
because all the drugs aren't producing
the results we want and your oxygen level
is dangerously low. You have a 50/50% chance
of death either way you choose to go."
Doctors: four. Answers: zero.
 
One night to decide—no crying allowed.
My husband left at my request, so I told the truth
to the pillow pressed against my cheek:
“You don’t deserve a miracle
when you merely utter orisons in tragic times,
use them like eraser heads
when friends need rescuing or comfortable words.
You don’t deserve a miracle
when you don’t trust God like evening stars
or constants of the galaxy.”
 
I lay there rigid, cold and alone
in a dark cellar of hypocrisy.
Despite the haze of drugs,
I saw my sacrilegious blood
splattered on communion cloth,
defiling miles of unshakeable faith
others had planted seed by seed
no matter the weather, no matter the soil.
Father taught me to lean on myself,
assured me that prayer was begging
under a bridge for strength
that should be born from “character.”
I needed gallant plates of armor
to survive unfortunate facts of my birth.
But this time stoic was a joke:
I stretched my mind in blind, deaf trust,
pleaded for maps to a gracious death
or a favor from God
the size of a barreling asteroid.

Books I’ve Read

 You’re in a wheelchair up the street
waiting for a surgery—your family
all surrounding you—but not.
They cannot fathom missing limbs,
cannot understand the book;
they run an errand and leave.
I get it and you know I know
the shoe you cannot bend to tie.
I know because my bone was sawed,
and I sit on my couch riddled by envy
of four simple legs holding it up,
using a pillow to punch.
 
We talk about everything but:
that mass existing under your skin.
I love you too much to watch the wait,
so we talk on the phone,
suffer the stuff I understand
better than butter and salt on corn.
After scalpels are returned
to places on a metal tray,
you will come to my house and rest.
We’re used to very sleepless nights,
being finches on a wire;
you can trust me with your scars.
I sand a callus on my stump
and promise you, and promise you
I’ll let you weep until your sockets are dry
as Arizona’s desert floor.
 
It isn’t the disfigurement
that tweaks our necks,
tangles the logic of hope.
It’s all about taking a step
with collars lifted and starched
to walk into the eye of the storm.
I selfishly keep my distance for now,
angry enough at bullies of fate
who have stolen more than a purse.

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© Copyright, Janet Buck.
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