Polar Winds
Too many icy drinks, too fast on a hot summer day,
my core center chilled beyond bearing and
my stomach reacted violently, throwing up
the offending liquid. One can’t go from steamy
summer to frigid winter without a physical reaction.
That glacial feeling from last summer,
came back to me when I saw the doctor
come from the operating room and
head in my direction. His words did
not register with me at first. It was as if they
were frozen in time.
They hung in the air, singly and slowly like
a slow moving storm of ice pellets.
Bleak and raw they whirled around my head before
settling in my startled stomach. They struck
like ice cubes inadvertently swallowed and
too big for their landing place.
The words were cold and cruel and cut into my
very soul as surely as a surgeons steel scalpel
slices through soft flesh.
My foggy brain afraid of reality, chose to be critical
of the messenger. I decided that he had said
these words too many times before and his well
of empathy and emotion had dried to a hard crust.
That is why he was being so direct and frigid.
Then as if driven there by a strong wind, my
thoughts veered off in a different direction.
I felt a flood of pity for the doctor. He looked
so tired and well he might. The operation had
started eighteen hours ago.
Finally my brain filtered out the non-essentials
and leapt onto his words.
“ He didn’t survive the operation.”
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