© Tabitha Eckert, RN
It was an elective procedure,
not necessary, but probably worth it,
clean and simple, in and out.
Better be, since he’s the man of the house, he said,
and so many things need him.
Of course, he’d go home in a few days, they said,
back to the tile he needs to replace,
the yard that never stops needing mowed,
the wife whose presence he needs to sleep soundly
just as she needs his snoring to sleep herself
because it’s been there ever since he was barely old enough
to shave that beard that always needs a trim,
the cell phone that always needs charged because his daughter calls so often,
his favorite chair by the table marked by that one mug
from which he and only he may sip coffee
while he waits for the sun to rise each morning.
He’ll be in the ICU at least a week longer.
Can’t say for sure, but at least.
He’s a sick patient; he needs so many treatments.
And then – if then – he’ll need rehab, they say.
Home for them both is a far away thing, dancing in delirious visions
of the hard recliner chair in the waiting room
that she can tolerate only because she so badly needs to sleep,
and blown more distant with each harsh mechanical sigh
of the ventilator he needs to breathe
through the new hole in his neck where the trach ties
constantly wick up bloody ooze and need to be changed,
and hanging in the air faint and sweet and stale,
like the scent of the cookies she left on cooling racks weeks ago
that now need to be thrown out, whenever she gets back.
She will stay here till he leaves.
That was part of the promise.
She will love no matter what it costs, she says,
no matter what he needs to pull him through.
Her heart falls to the ground with each scrub-wearing messenger,
but she picks it back up and dusts off the fear
cause he needs it to shine, he needs it to hope,
he needs to be sure that no words and no scalpels
can shatter the promise on which they gambled their lives,
or the new name of “we” being truer than “I,”
or the gradual exchange of standing for leaning,
or the dream that no matter what comes, it’s better together;
he needs to still hope that, and she needs him to.
She doesn’t need him well, or whole or nicely patched
or even able to shave by himself, she says – no,
she just needs him back
among all the familiar needs he needs to be him.
She needs him
so she needs him home.
Judges Comments:
What a touching story! This poem makes clear how a medical procedure may be a fairly straightforward event in the clinic or the ICU, but its impact unfolds in infinite directions and to untold depths once the full scope of a person’s life is considered. The exceptional, concrete, slice-of-life detail—from the “yard that never stops needing mowed” to the “harsh mechanical sigh of the ventilator”—made this poem stand out to me. The clincher, though, is the line about “‘we’ being truer than ‘I,’” a sentiment as applicable to the loving couple in the poem as it is to the patient’s care team and everyone who is touched by the poem.