POETRY

Nurse to nurse
For MKJ with gratitude

Don’t tell anyone about the cancer.
If they ask, don’t answer,

she pleaded with troubled blue eyes,
lips quivering—

angry, disappointed, the present
and future violently disjointed;

life ending rudely through a door
marked Metastatic Cancer—

What can I do? she asked
but I had no answer.

Her eyebrows disappeared,
she needed a cane to walk;

she drew best friends around her
we nurses, for tea and talk,

We all know the score,
her eyes met each gaze,

I have loved my profession,
I have loved all of you,
now my days are very few ...

She took to her bed.
Weeks later, morphine haze, pale of face,
Palms touching lightly in prayerful embrace.

Her knowing eyes opened to me,
Blue to blue, nurse to nurse.

It’s all right now, really,
I feel the love—

No questions, no answers.
Just grace, only grace.