issue four / panacea
Hospital Lobby, Christmas Eve 2011
Caroline Wolff
I couldn’t get there fast enough--
slippered feet padding down the cold tile to the elevator,
cannula wiggling free of my nostrils--
when the nurse told me she’d arrived.
I meant it last year, when I said
she was the only good part of
being inpatient on Christmas.
I meant it when I said she was worth
getting out of bed with a migraine,
or skipping book club,
how she handles the tinsel like a talisman,
places each pine cone with
a steadiness that rivals the surgeons,
polishes each ornament with her aurora borealis scarf,
presses it to her heart to bless its holy matrimony
with a prickly, strong-willed branch.
This matchmaker. This medicine-woman.
How do I tell her, from the other side
of the reception desk,
that this is healthcare--
Not pill schedules
and pen scratches on clipboards, but
her ice-blonde hair haloed by ambulance beacons,
her tip-toed and tight-jawed on a step-ladder,
craning her neck for the sake of composition,
the exhale and eye-twinkle at having made
something that might just soothe
our aches if we gaze at it long enough.
I think she knows, because
Joaquin is turning up his hearing aid
and leaning in to hear her humming “White Christmas,”
because Little Mia’s eyes keep skittering up from her coloring book,
because it’s been an hour since I scratched at my IV, turned my head
toward a siren’s wail, gnawed on a fingernail, or
dreaded
the impending
door knock.
Here, time becomes a lozenge, sugary,
bursting in the backs of all our throats,
until the sky blooms an antiseptic black,
and Mia goes to bed, hangs a stocking
on her door and starts dreaming
of hoofbeats on the helipad,
while the rest of us gaze on, transfixed,
until gift boxes are papered and tied
and carted off, until the woman’s humming
subsides when the nurses tap their wristwatches,
and the clock’s hands reclaim their grip,
crushing her ritual to powder, fine as snowflakes,
or malnourished bone.
Bells jingle in her jittery hands.
An ornament divorces its branch,
but I smile to show her
she’s safe here, with us,
to revel in her slowness.
I want her to know that, on the next floor up,
babies in incubators are still growing into their organs.
Amputees are walking laps in their new prosthetics.
Burn victims are beginning to recognize their reflections.
Girls in my wing are putting stickers on calendar squares,
marking the days they kept their applesauce cups down.
We are all celebrating peppermint canes and popcorn chains.
We have learned not to think about the fully-flocked tree, not yet,
not while we are wobbling on our step-ladders well into the night,
so I can only hope she stays
and stewards and sculpts
until she wouldn’t change a pine needle.
slippered feet padding down the cold tile to the elevator,
cannula wiggling free of my nostrils--
when the nurse told me she’d arrived.
I meant it last year, when I said
she was the only good part of
being inpatient on Christmas.
I meant it when I said she was worth
getting out of bed with a migraine,
or skipping book club,
how she handles the tinsel like a talisman,
places each pine cone with
a steadiness that rivals the surgeons,
polishes each ornament with her aurora borealis scarf,
presses it to her heart to bless its holy matrimony
with a prickly, strong-willed branch.
This matchmaker. This medicine-woman.
How do I tell her, from the other side
of the reception desk,
that this is healthcare--
Not pill schedules
and pen scratches on clipboards, but
her ice-blonde hair haloed by ambulance beacons,
her tip-toed and tight-jawed on a step-ladder,
craning her neck for the sake of composition,
the exhale and eye-twinkle at having made
something that might just soothe
our aches if we gaze at it long enough.
I think she knows, because
Joaquin is turning up his hearing aid
and leaning in to hear her humming “White Christmas,”
because Little Mia’s eyes keep skittering up from her coloring book,
because it’s been an hour since I scratched at my IV, turned my head
toward a siren’s wail, gnawed on a fingernail, or
dreaded
the impending
door knock.
Here, time becomes a lozenge, sugary,
bursting in the backs of all our throats,
until the sky blooms an antiseptic black,
and Mia goes to bed, hangs a stocking
on her door and starts dreaming
of hoofbeats on the helipad,
while the rest of us gaze on, transfixed,
until gift boxes are papered and tied
and carted off, until the woman’s humming
subsides when the nurses tap their wristwatches,
and the clock’s hands reclaim their grip,
crushing her ritual to powder, fine as snowflakes,
or malnourished bone.
Bells jingle in her jittery hands.
An ornament divorces its branch,
but I smile to show her
she’s safe here, with us,
to revel in her slowness.
I want her to know that, on the next floor up,
babies in incubators are still growing into their organs.
Amputees are walking laps in their new prosthetics.
Burn victims are beginning to recognize their reflections.
Girls in my wing are putting stickers on calendar squares,
marking the days they kept their applesauce cups down.
We are all celebrating peppermint canes and popcorn chains.
We have learned not to think about the fully-flocked tree, not yet,
not while we are wobbling on our step-ladders well into the night,
so I can only hope she stays
and stewards and sculpts
until she wouldn’t change a pine needle.
Caroline Wolff is a poet, essayist, and journalist from San Antonio, TX. Her work has been featured in Skyline and The Trinity Review, and is forthcoming in SICK, Anodyne, and The Marbled Sigh. When she isn't writing, you can find her doing pilates or snuggling with her tuxedo cat. To follow Caroline on her writing journey, visit her on Instagram: @carolinemariewrites.