I work in a hospital;
and a friend sent me a poem
after hearing me discuss
the ugly and beautiful
side of familes
in hospitals
during the holidays.
Her Long Illness
Daybreak until nightfall
he sat by his wife at the hospital
while chemotherapy dripped
through the catheter into her heart.
He drank coffee and read
the Globe.
He paced, he worked
on poems, he rubbed her back
and read aloud.
Overcome with dread
they wept and affirmed
their love for each other, witlessly,
over and over again.
When it snowed one morning Jane gazed
at the darkness blurred
with flakes.
They pushed the IV pump
which she called Igor
slowly past the nurses' pods,
as far
as the outside door
so that she could smell the snowy air.
(By Donald Hall
From a collection compiled by Garrison Keillor)
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