CPE - Poem 1

IN EARLY SUMMER HEAT

"Sweetheart, you are in pain.
Relax, take a breath,
let's pay attention to what is happening,
then we'll figure out what to do." - Sylvia Boorstein

I'm conflicted.

June seventh,
Ninety-seven degrees of steamy St. Louis heat,
Catered sandwiches on the patio
Just feet from chilly basement-level labs
And operating rooms for harvesting
Vascular organs and bone and tissue

I tell someone of going to lunch
At a French restaurant the day Gene died,
But the car stalled.
Of then being delivered to the mortuary door
In the cab of a tow truck
Gourmet lunch boxed in our laps.
We ate in the basement off mortuary china.

The trainer pushes hard,
Insists we be fully convinced,
Belief in organ or tissue donation
From every body, he says, is a job requirement.
Our goal: one-hundred percent donation rate.

I tell my colleagues I am conflicted.
But I'm not conflicted. I'm pissed.
I live in a country where I am not allowed,
Not allowed to give blood while I am alive
And well,
Plenty of it to spare,
But when I croak, they want next of kin
to donate tissue, bone, organs.
The icing on that cake is thick:
In most states my partner,
Twenty-five years we're together,
Is not recognized as next of kin.
Partner dearer than life, made a stranger.

Conflicted? No.
I am angry.

Then suddenly I'm back in that San Diego December.
Memories and overpowering laughter
Barely letting us breathe,
We gathered the night of Gene's death.
The waiter mistakes mourning for frivolity,
Trying to join in.
I want to slap him.
Why should we explain our grief
To a stranger?

I sit with my anger and wish
I could walk that December beach again.

Sunset and roaring sea on Coronado Island,
Lone joggers working up the sheen
Of a light winter sweat,
Lovers, arm in arm walking, briskly,
A youth and his collie sit, looking seaward,
Too much wind for frisbee.
I wait for the green flash.


© Copyright 2011 by Paul Kent Oakley