A Life To Give Poem by Anderson Greenwald

Darkness behind closed eyes arrive to light
To the sound of rushing nurses.
Supine aches adorn my tired body.
But that is less than least on my mind.

My wife lies surrounded.
My audible shock roused attention
But not for too long as they resumed
Their ministrations to her chest.

I look up to see a solid green line.
Flat…

(I said nothing to her for twenty threes minutes
Before it happened.
A fight over spilt milk it seems to me now.
Then the walker took a step out into the street
And…)

I don’t remember after that.
As vague and unknown as your injuries.
I look at your face.
Vacant hazel eyes staring at me.
My sight is blurring; I’m crying…

(I never cry. That’s what she always said.
She’d say, “Why do you never cry? ”
“There’s nothing to really cry about.”
My reply never sat well with her.
“I wonder what it would take to make you cry.”)

And here it is: my grand return to tears.
Curtains shield you away from me.
It doesn’t matter. I can hear their apprehension.
Their angst apparent as minutes turned into an hour.
Sullen faces speak to me about my wife.
My visible pain…
A life too short to stop.
A life too loved…

(On an ordinary night in an ordinary house,
We slept on an ordinary bed.
I awoke due to thirst and got some water.
When I returned, I saw the beauty that was her.
And she was mine.
I leaned in to her ear and,
Even though she couldn’t hear,
I spoke.
“My only life to live,
My only life to enjoy,
My only life to do what I want:
I give it all to you.
Because my life is you.”
Then I drifted off again.)

Then…
I drifted off again…