Visiting the Sick

"Here's the hell of it: madness doesn't announce itself. There isn't time to prepare for its coming. It shows up without calling and sits in your kitchen ashing in your plant. You ask how long it plans to stay; it shrugs its shoulders, gets up, and starts digging through the fridge."--Marya Hornacher, Madness: A Bipolar Life

he knows i disdain anthuriums,
how their waxy surface
reminds me much too much
of plastic, of how
hypocrisy has been cultivated
into a new hybrid virtue.

nevertheless,
on this my second week in
the basement, the orderly announces
a sunday visitor. it is him.

very brusquely, he hands over
a bundle wrapped in
yesterday's papers & a fresh
sheet of coupon bond where
i am to sign away stewardship over
two buds of roses in my life.

before he departs, he plants
an absent-minded kiss
on my head of un-shampooed hair.

i trudge back to the ward,
stop by the nurses' station,
peel off the newspaper
& present to the nurse on duty

this bouquet of heartbreak.

--Babeth Lolarga
September 2010