A Hospital Stay - Part Vi

6. Miracles and Miseries The world resolved itself back into focus As I lay amid the swarm of monitors Still gulping the sword that brought me breath. The worst now past Many small miseries remained, Chief among them the continuing mystery Of my flooded, struggling lungs. Finally I breathe well enough for the sword to be removed, But the tests go on and on The birth of each day bearing forth Its own fresh indignity. They give up guessing and haul me down again To be opened anew and read for signs. On the day this is done The invisible agents of death outside Decide to mock their pursuers By leaving a tarot card at that day's shooting site. They chose the Death card, of course Revealing how little those Who choose to play God games really know About the mystical. Dreaming of omnipotence through dealing death The unseen assassins miss their own meaning; For this card signals change, the ending of present things. They have unwittingly declared their game will soon be over, Predicting their own demise. Meanwhile the doctors make their own spread of me And come up blank again. Once more I return to I.C.U., Held together with staples. Once more the little agonies ensue: The sitting, the turning, the testing. By night they come for my blood. By day they come for tests. Always, in the background, the quiet moanings Of we, the damned, condemned to medical Limbo Roll on with the blind passage of hours and days. The English nurse comes, all brightness and bubble To heave my fragile self about; She's a welcome break in the monotony As my sustainers come and go. Again the busy bedside conferences And again the final admission That all their probings have led down blind alleys. A last-ditch effort is finally proposed: Direct drainage of the drowning lungs. To them this seems as a grasping at straws, But to me it seems the one sensible solution, And I look forward to it eagerly. My inner mantra of "This too shall pass" Is wearing thin. Like a Christian martyr of old, They pierce my back with their lance, And the sea within that is drowning me Finds its way out. As the noxious waters within rush out, Air surges into my grateful lungs. From this moment, recovery becomes the new reality. As I recover, Indiscretion leads to capture Of the unseen terrormakers. To the astonishment of all, They prove to be a dignified looking black man And his enthralled protege' - No prior convictions, no history of trouble Attached to them at all. This is how our modern Destroyers come calling. Well dressed, well spoken models of propriety.