Dance Macabre of the ICU Cicada
Somewhere an alarm was shrilling
tugging me out from the cottony deep.
Sliding a few loose layers of consciousness together
I lazily fresnelled in on my tormentor
but sensing the gathering focus, he ceased his cry.
Again untethered, I resumed my blissful spiraling drift
but that pesky insectizoidal siren quickly returned, baiting
my naked awareness back into the grating shallows.
This time a figure rose, murmuring, "His vitals are real low."
"Yeah, he's bad," came a response.
"Oh wait - they're coming back!"
And so passed my wet twilit dream
porpoising thru the swells of a timeless sea
whereat upon each plummet, electronic and human minders busily reeled me back up
but it was a catch-and-release program
and so back down I'd go.
The world then tilted, toppled and wheeled
thru a growing and glowing pulsate palette
of less saturate, more pastellate tints
that ballooned and emptied of sunlight
in tinctured sync with fat bolides of morphine -
*poof* *poof* and I was again a child in fever delirium
and flannel footies watching wide-eyed as molten crystal
currents boiled and whispered thru the illumined air.
(Try to keep what's left of your head, O early acolyte
on the well-worn shamanistic path of brain pathogenicity!)
From some parallel but alien universe
a hot bright dart snarked across my unguarded pupils
"Hello, is anybody in there?"
(I swam toward the voice like a curious cuttlefish.)
"Show us you can breathe on your own and the tube can come out."
Huh? - reaching in confusion toward my tape-covered face
I came up short against restraints both hand and foot
quickly being cinched even closer with the admonishment: "Don't touch!"
I surfaced suddenly to the depth of my plight:
harpooned down the throat and enmeshed in a tight trawlnet
of straps, plastic tubes, leads, and conductive goop!
After voicing my protests as best I could (*gurgle*)
I resigned myself to relearning to breathe
it obviously being the only upright way to leave!
So knowing I had nothing but life left to lose
I commenced to draw on that respirator hose
like it was a hookah hooked to heaven, the umbilical of mother love
the last creamy teat for the littlest piglet
and it took a lot of practice and human help: brisk reminders
body rubs, even a shout or two down the MRI tunnel
but soon I silenced that damned cicada, shed the tubes
and stood braced (albeit unsteadily) at the edge of the bed
whereupon the doctor said, "Why, just look at you - you should be dead
but tho still too old to dance, show a much greater miracle in its stead!"
Well, I gave him a smile, but thought all the while
"Beg pardon, Doc, but just give me some room
for I danced myself right out of the womb
and plan to dance straight back to the tomb
for it's never, ever strange or wrong to dance too late, or long, or soon
even if I have to rattle my own bones for a tune!"
(Now - I'm famished - where's that hospital food?)
- Ananda T.
