CHRISTINA-MARIE UMSCHEID
COURAGE
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The eclipse of the body shatters light shatters darkness. Cells multiply starving with growth. I stumble under the surge of my body gone awry. I stumble with illness. Therapies diminish. Treatments erode. Holes and gaps are everywhere. Cells multiply starving with growth. Destruction. There is a name for this chaos But I hesitate to let it pass my lips. Each day I search the sky I search inside. Cancer brings on new solar fragments. Cells multiply starving with growth. My hands press words like breasts pressed in pain. Words shape into poems that bind in strength. Words are my prayers. |
PREDICTIONS
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I walk, leaving the wheelchair behind where imprisoned emotions refuse escape. From one house window to another there is only darkness and wet glass. Two radios play - one for each ear. With television they ruffle sounds, and break isolation. I refuse to give up bleakness which becomes my badge. Pompeii is flickering on my favorite channel showing ancient deaths. Mine is closer. A sentence is what I always wanted, not sudden departure without farewells. My volcanic ash is disease. Life can stop by a doctor's prediction. But I move days backwards, and smile at those who watch me. Strength becomes air I breathe. Light colors my skin, rosy, and fragrant with health. Greyness outside is only temporary. |
THE SACRIFICE
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Your chart is closed, the victim of surgery. Your heart refused their technology, it refused to be repaired. They said you had a better than even chance this time. But you remembered their quavering glance, you remembered and asked "why now?" You asked them as they turned and you asked me. But how could I tell you what I knew only in my heart and not in my head? We never talked about it again. Did you see the answer in my eyes? Did you guess and then put the thought away or did it haunt you until the end? Each morning I woke you early and while you bathed I changed your linen and gave you instant coffee and touched your hand ever so slightly. And on the last day we started early. Your room filled with family. The youngest grandchild, a baby, nestled momentarily in your arms. You smiled. This could have taken place in some ancient land - the ceremonial grace with which goodbyes were said. |
THE FERRYMAN
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White caps dot the lake while the last ferry rocks on stormy water. The ferryman stands, his back visible to those who hurry to leave one shore. White flags for surrender brush in and out the door. Nurses move briskly, not silently. They are not at my beck and call. I can no longer speak. A coin weights each eye of the traveler to pay for his journey. My eyes no longer desire to look and there is no turning back. This journey draws near but I have a lack of gold to pay my way. River Styx is near. The white flags hurry to bring me on life's track but instead I pay death with a tear. |