Dead Bodies

Yesterday D. called to say that C., a mutual friend of ours, had gone to the home of one of his employees to check in on her because she hadn't shown up to work in a few days, answered her phone, or returned his messages. The landlord let him in. She was dead. She was 55 or so.

I have seen many dead bodies. Dead people. I was going to say a lot, but I don't know if I've seen more than the average American or not. Obviously, many in the hospice time period. A few during the working-in-the-hospital years. Those were kids, and a couple of babies, since the hospital where I worked was a children's hospital. And then the dead people you'd expect at the open-casket mourning events.

I have found four dead people in my life. Three in the line of duty, overdoses all, and one not. M. was first. She was addicted to heroin and pills and crystal meth and she had an explosive temper. I used to see her for individual psychotherapy and I always had to sit in a chair by the door with the door a little open. And three times over the course of a year I had to call 911 to have the cops remove her from the office for screaming and making threats and refusing to leave and throwing things. She once threw my stapler out the window and when I went to leave at the end of the day, having forgotten all about it, it was lying there, dead, on the hood of my car.

Anyway she was a high risk for accidental overdose and that's what happened. I got a call from her landlord in August about an odor. I went out, he let me in, and she was in bed, dead, vomit and pills visible in the vomit and the whole bit. She was 22 years old and she really hoped she was going to beat her addiction and have a happy life. She really believed in herself and her future. She used to write these long kind of 8th-grade-rhyme-y poems about that and show them to me. I gotta hang on/cuz I believe in me/and I'm gonna dream on/cuz there's so much for me to be. That kind of thing. I really liked her a lot. I was glad I was the one who found her because her whole family was awful and so was her boyfriend and so were her friends. Predators all. It doesn't matter that I was the one to find her but I'm still glad it was me. All things considered, we had a good relationship.

K. I only knew for a few weeks. Heroin. Another landlord call, no odor, but rent not paid and no answers to knocks and notes pushed under the door. Dead on his side on the kitchen floor, with bunches of old plastic grocery-store bags in each hand, and a used condom on the floor. All the lights on. A digital clock radio in every single room, in the hallway, in the bathroom too, and no furniture except an office chair, stolen from our office, and a futon mattress on the floor, with a sleeping bag, and a bunched-up flannel shirt for a pillow. I still think about the clocks. Why?

N. was a junky's junky. She would ingest anything, smoke anything, inject anything. She was 45 and had been living like that since she was 12 or so. It was a miracle she was still around. It caught up to her. I went to pick her up to take her to a routine physical, her first medical care in 10 years. It was her annual treatment plan goal. Increase self-care skills. The only thing she would agree to work on. N. will attend and complete a routine physical exam with E.'s assistance and accompaniment for support by xx/xx/xx. She lived in the worst rooming house in Lynn, which is saying a lot. Light St. The saddest and most violent pit of despair and human depravity I've seen. We always went there in pairs except for that day. I ran in by myself because the person who was going to go with me called out sick but it was a big day, her appointment day, and I didn't want to lose momentum with her. Her door was open and the TV was on and she was dead in bed. Not long dead either. As I was calling the police on my cell a guy walked in behind me with his pants off and sporting a giant erection. He walked right out when he saw me. That was her life. Door open, sex for drugs, 24/7. I stayed there until the cops came even though I was scared to be in that building. I did not want that guy coming back in and I bet he would have. That place was that bad. It was stupid and emotional of me to do that. I recognize that. But its what I did at that moment. It all turned out OK.

The fourth is the first dead person I ever saw, and that was in Kenya. I was staying with a family in Kibera, the big slum outside of Nairobi. They always had my homestay brother walk me to the matatu, crowded little bus, and pick me up to walk me home. I knew it was a dangerous place though I still can't say dangerous in exactly what way. Murder? Rape? Pickpocketing? Anyway.

One afternoon I got off the matatu and he wasn't there so I walked by myself. I was supposed to wait but I was 20 and American and naive and didn't. I got lost. I found a main-ish road and followed it and there were lots of people walking with me who looked OK so that felt OK to me. And then in front of me there was a naked, dead, Kenyan 40-ish looking guy lying face up in the street. And absolutely no one paused, stopped, or even looked at him. Involuntarily I stopped, and stared, and then I thought, get moving. Because that's what it was like the whole time I was on my own, more or less, in Kenya. Don't stand out, and do what everyone else is doing. So I walked by too. My homestay brother found me not too long after and I told my homestay family about it and they were really, really angry with me. I don't know if they were angry with me because they were scared I did that and that something could have happened to me, or if I somehow put them at risk. I don't know if they reported the body or not. I was too rattled by how angry they were to ask.

That Kenyan guy looked perfect. Clean and healthy-looking and no injuries anywhere I could see, and a pleasant expression on his face, eyes open, just gazing into the distance.

Valentine

If you are the keepers
of a kingdom
of leisure

or the thug
of the dungeon
of responsibilities

then
I am the
queen of pleasure
in the empire
of the senses
just as that song I sent
sang to you
did you close your eyes to hear
what she said

I am here to
set it on fire and watch your
slow burn
or
trip over my own
sweeping skirts

for one day only
I can't
be found

and for one day only
everytime you trace
your collarbone
with a finger
and slide it to rest
in the notch
at the hollow
of your throat

I will call together
all my subjects
to melt something slowly
on your tongue
to brush your cheeks
with my roses
and bring the flush
to kiss your open eyes
with the colors
and the unholy vision
you can't look away from

an inhale
and the exhale
and the sweet delight
of knowing
the gorgeous blood
thrumming
and coursing
oh your
wholly beautiful
hearts

I am ruling
with all my
temperamental fury
to breach the borders
and invade
your country
nevermind
what is sneaking up
behind me

I am always
being brought down
but not before this
golden age
drink the meade
with me and
spend the night at
my encampment
I will send you home
in the morning
with bread
and milk and honey
and the silken banners

of your native lands.

March

I looked in
through the damp and
dark-barked trees
cold spring come
the first sound
and smell
of dripping water and
the moss gone to green
and I saw her

continue
to keep her secrets
of the times
around the corners
and down the stairs
and of the nightdreams
and waiting daydreams
about
being visible
and of breaking
her own heart
as if
that were love
or a promise
or a way to
be full

go ahead
and kiss her
she still
doesn't know

fog and
a tiny mist
even the trees
now obscured
and slowly gone

but only
from sight.

Myth

The crush
of dirty winter cars
agonizing their way
in a curved and heaving coil
to the big city.
For what
I thought
behind my own wheel. I
watched myself
blink and excuse myself
to the shoulder
and get out
and wade into
the deep snow
in a little basin
with one crabapple tree
by an onramp. My
mother is dead
and I have just gotten the call
and I stand here
and look at humanity
unaware
passing by
the weak February sun
making glare
and trouble.

She isn't dead. No call came.
I did not get out
or wade in
or step back
and watch
from a transformed place.
I am in this too. None of us
are mindless and
none of us
are the crush of
humanity and
it takes
much less than
death
real
or imagined
to know it.

Touch the bark
of the crabapple tree.

We all
know exactly
what it feels like.

The Hospice Worker Goes to Laptop Training

Nothing died today
nothing
in front of me
anyway
You get so you
don't think that matters
but a little bit
it does
Three times today I heard
that song
about the day
the music died
and at the bar
the guy
at the open mike
played it again
and sang Peggy Sue
it must be
some anniversary
of some crash
and legends
before they were legends
lost today
we said
the friend and I
to each other

today
not one of my patients died
and there was not one crash
on the untreated roads
in all of
snow-storming Massachusetts
and the seamonkeys
survived the cat
one more day
and the friend
was discharged home
not dead
and with a good story
and the other friend
I was sitting with
found her sense
of the absurd
and did not
die anymore
inside herself

and then the guy
at the open mike
played Tupelo Honey
so slow
so nice
so much so
I had to
put my hand on
the friend's hand
bow my head
to listen
and smile
for a minute

today was
one good day
and that is
what I thought
on the slippery road
driving home
if I crash
and I die
this was a day
I could end on.

Life on a Train

I see you
in the frames
flashing by.
See the rounded hill
it was west, somewhere
dry and golden grass
nothing near
what was I doing there
and when was it
but I see it
so clearly
this long shadow
from the train
like a stencil
stretching up
but not spilling over
that smooth hill and
it was chilly
about to be cold
the day
was ending
and it was
lonely there
but that
flashing shadow
I could not stop watching
flash flash
black gold
there you were
glimpses
between the frames
and I knew
look there
all the time
all the trains
the things
that flash by
watch them
you will see
you will shiver
and even
feel that empty
and lonely feel
but wait for me
and watch for me
you will see.

New Router

Back in business. Thank you MD.