“Elephant in the Room,” “Still Life with Wrapped Catheter,” and “Morituri te salutamus”

Elephants—supposedly lurking,

menacing in a vast, dark corner, heavy

and dangerous, bringing some beastly

karma to punish arrogant humans, right?

That’s not it, not at all—everywhere,

everywhere the elephants, like dancing

Disney creatures almost, but more

restrained, more unperturbed—

they like to be watched, assume

being watched by the those at tables

all around, but few diners pay any heed

to such quiet, if overdressed, dignity.

I notice so much more each time,

eating Thai again, like the old days but

now alone, so I can admire elegance,

like the pot stickers arrayed as petals

of some burnt-orange flower, shredded

carrot and cabbage form delicate stamen

and pistil, so clever I feel guilty touching,

but have it boxed, just so, for home.

But elephants, you ask, they hang

on framed plaques and in incised

wall panels, on red velour, outlined

with sequins gold and silver, showy

but still stately with their lifted trunks.

Now alone, I see at last the wall’s message,

and hear background sounds of clattering

kitchen and cackling voices at table.

The pleasant wait staff all know, all

smile, as I take the smallest table,

“Ms. Table-for-One” they call me, smiling—

no harm intended—acknowledging

merely time’s passage, its weight, as do

the elephants, who would never stoop

to speak of it. Thursday nights, how

many years ago, more than ten, not

twenty, certainly not twenty? By then

all three kids in high school, wanting

Fridays to themselves, so family was

for Thursday at the Thai place

with elephants we never saw. Now

kids grown and gone, moved—east,

south, west—for marriage and for work,

and my spouse moved also, permanently,

to the suburb of Dementia Falls, where

my daily visits are of no avail, though

at times he stares and recollects my face,

at least it seems, or I would seem it so.

They will pack the dumpling dish

for me with special care, each one

a flower bedded on cabbage leaves—

my bouquet, for a wedding, for a death.

The table arranges itself for the gaze

as if an artist obsessed with clutter

wished to capture its variegated meanings

That obnoxious plastic mug, clear

but black-lidded, whose purpose seems

to let ice melt slowly into pointlessness

They refill it from time to time,

mostly shaved ice, a little liquid as well,

but it all tastes of transparent plastic, empty

Two small paper medicine cups

from the afternoon’s dosages still remain,

along with a half cup of bitter juice

He calls the little cups “couplets,”

but no one gets the reference, the CNA nods

pleasantly, as if listening to a child’s babble

That curved plastic bowl for spitting,

a modern spittoon when they brush his teeth,

the brush slanted in another plastic cup

So much plastic, a cornucopia of objects

all derived from Jurassic beasts and forests,

reminding us of the subterranean

And of course, the spare catheter, still wrapped,

looking from a distance like a new toothbrush,

but waiting for an insertion in the night

Objects and furniture, though this table

is mere facility without furniture’s grace or warmth,

long past its origins, long past innocence lost

It has seen the bodies come and go,

heard the groans, gathered in the scents,

been wiped clean ten thousand times

At the Oncology ICU

We lie before you in our pain,

our grief, our shame at having fallen

so low, so bereft of power or hope

We salute you, nonetheless,

salute you in your white-coated glory,

your imperial authority over life and death

We have failed you, however,

failed and fallen to the monster tumors

that have conquered us despite your aid

You stand in watch, observing, studying,

looking at cause and effect, checking the data

on metal-clipped chart or blinking monitor

You comment and consult with one another,

speaking in that dialect of acronyms and initials,

of cruel numbers and esoteric names

As if we before you were already cadavers

awaiting dissection by eager-scalpeled students,

though our eyes still see, our ears hear

even if we don’t understand the words, instead

learning from the stern faces, the cool demeanors,

and even the rare, strained acknowledging nod

Yes, you have sliced, scoured, and sutured

to no avail, for it is in our cells that we are underlings,

unworthy perhaps of the wisdom you profess

Grand indeed these regular rounds,

a spectacle for you to trace the topographic map

etched in scars across the belly and breast

The embalded head, a globe-like artifact,

deforested by chemicals like a jungle in Nam,

becomes a barren planet no one will visit

So, speechless though open-mouthed,

silenced by humility, or by the opiates imposed,

still, we who are about to die, salute you.