Poem: The Shifts

The Shifts

The rule was that we would not leave her alone
Someone would always be there
My mother would not
Could not
Die unless she was alone
So we took shifts
Sitting with her sleeping shell
Listening to the respirator
Inflate
And deflate her chest
Listening to the alarms
When her breath
Or her heart
Failed to make the next cycle
At the right time
The room was alternately too hot or too cold
And my intense
Driving
Fear of hospitals
Left me with a persistent dread
I could not have escaped
Even in better circumstances
As the days carried forward
And we worked harder and harder
To fit our lives
Back into the schedule
Most of the shifts
Were spent alone
I got to know the nurses and the techs
And the Spanish only cleaning woman
Who communicated hope
As best she could
The shifts would continue
For days
Then weeks
Then months
As we kept in motion
To keep our word

Poem: Minor Delusions

Minor Delusions

At some point
My mother started to confuse
The hospital with home
Thinking the view from the window
Was the backyard
And not the parking lot
I would gently remind her
That we were in the hospital
And the nurses were not in the next room
But patrolling an overcrowded hall
Which is why they took so long
To respond to her pressing
The button
Sometimes the Xanax
And other drugs fogged her mind
And she would forget who people were
But only in conversation
Not in person
She always knew who I was
And that was somewhat comforting

– J.C. Hewitt

Poem: The Second Hospital

The Second Hospital

The first hospital was inadequate
Was ill-equipped
Was too specialized
And so we had to move
To the big mega-hospitalopolis
Designed to care for any
And every problem
With equal disdain
For each and every person
Who walked through its doors
The new hospital was not designed for family
Or for visitors
Or for anything besides
Treating the body
The spirit is an issue
Of little or no concern
Outside of the chapel
We were not put off that easily though
It is amazing what you can get
If you just never stop pushing
And so we persevered
In hard plastic chairs
Continuing our shifts
Onward and onward
We wore gloves and gowns
And sat behind sliding glass doors
We fought security
And a general feeling
That we were just in the way
I was always making up for lost time
Time spent in Phoenix
In hotel rooms
In cubicles
Removed from the action
My sisters
On town
Took the nights
And my father took the days
And I added what I could
My mother would improve
Then fall back
At first we hoped to have her home by Christmas
But the days just kept passing
They were supposed to get her off the respirator
They were supposed to get her physical therapy
They were supposed to offer the care
She couldn’t get before
But all of that was as illusory as it gets
At best they were able
To fight of the MRSA
And keep up her dialysis
But as December moved into January
The only thing helping her
Was time
Her body started the slow path towards correction
Fevers came and went
Chills came and went
Some days she was yellow
When her liver couldn’t keep up
Some days she was bloated
Because she couldn’t digest the food
All progress was incremental
But we progressed toward something
Toward some point of recovery
She began to talk
Forcing her voice around the trachea
And that was almost more frustrating
Because we couldn’t understand her
And she so wanted to be heard

– J.C. Hewitt

Poem: Snow Together

Snow Together

One night at the hospital
I watched it snow
Which in Tucson is a next to never event
I felt bad because my mother
Couldn’t see it through the reflection
Of the lights in the room
And I had to describe it for her
Falling down and collecting on the windshield
Of my
And every other
Car out there
Light snowfall
Are natural attractions
But in the room it only made
My mother grow restless
And I eventually returned to the television
Because that was something she could see
And feel somewhat comforted by

– J.C. Hewitt

Poem: Awake and Paralyzed

Awake and Paralyzed

Her brain awoke in advance of her body
I don’t know how long she was awake
Before she could open he eyes
But that was the extent of it
For quite a wile
That and a small curl of the toes
A nervous twitch for the feet
She was trapped
Awake in her unmoving body
She stared at me and I
Stared back
Smiled as much as I could
And held her hand
I sat with my head on the bed
Feeling a kind of relief
Filled with the tension of knowing
That the first steps
Of a very hard climb
Had been taken
I tried to think of things to say
Conversations to have
Without her talking
I gave the sports report
And read a little from the paper
But in the end I had
Very little to say
And felt the frustration
Of ineffectiveness
I would ask what she thought about
During those times
But I don’t want to touch that feeling
That fear
Too deeply
Whatever she felt at the time
Is probably long gone now
As the brain washes away
What it cannot handle

– J.C. Hewitt

Poem: Friday Night in ICU

Friday Night in ICU

 

The scabs in the corner of her mouth

Are staring to heal

Underneath the thick white topical cream

When her eyes focus she sees me

I smile and she raises her eyebrows

The trachea tube in her neck

Moves slightly with each breath

And condensation collects inside

Her heart rate hovers at seventy

Her blood pressure is high but steady

No major peaks or valleys tonight

Her kidneys are back at work now

I watch her Foley bag fill

Calculating the difference over the past hour

She is fifty pounds of water lighter

Than just two weeks ago

When she looked like a pale Samoan

Her eyes too swollen for the nurse to force open

Now she looks something like herself

As she stares at me staring at her

Until she tires and closes her eyes

Sleeping for the rest of my time here

I keep watching

 

– J.C. Hewitt

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