Signs Of Spring Poem by Brian Wake

Signs Of Spring

Rating: 5.0


From Wednesday to Saturday we came and went in shifts;
brought outside in, disguised as flowers, to her bed. Would
take, not her, but only whiffs of disinfected hospital instead
back to her garden. Stones there bled.

Like starving dogs, we begged for scraps of why and how
just sixteen springs could seem, to her, enough; so much
in fact that she should slip upstairs and try the darkest door.

A clenched fist full of hope and questions, we, for four days,
came on shift to the hospital bed of my daughter. Held magazines,
rolled awkwardly, and folded handkerchiefs. We held her hand,
held trays to catch the steaming bile, a cloth to dab the tears.
Offered water, checked her pulse and that she understood
how loved she was.

And there, in almost silence, in a half dark ward, with only
nursing sounds and pumping instruments that beat relentlessly
against a dozen half-dead hearts, I sang to her as much as ever
I could sing, a hundred songs, and softly sang, and watched her
eyes for signs of spring.

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