Saying the Unsayable

[Billy]

Saying the Unsayable

Hands clasped behind his head,
he says something I can't understand.

Morphine mixes words in a slow
gooey concoction soothing his pain,

blurring the days that are left,
the whys ungraspable.

The dog has gotten outside.
He struggles to remember her name.

"She'll be run over like the last one."
It's a busy road that connects

to a highway, a shortcut.
His wife has run after the dog.

While she is gone he asks, "You
know don't you, will this work again,"

pointing to his legs, the left one
amputated below the knee, the right

too painful deep inside the bone
to move. His question tentative

as if he knows the answer
has nothing to do with his legs.

I tell him what no one has said
about this last road he must cross.

Before the moment lasts too long,
the dog bounds into the room.

[Michael (MV)]

 
Hi Billy,


Saying the Unsayable - but then it is no longer unsayable - did it ever need to be said


an hospice poem


esp that last line recalls to me the couplet poem "The Span of Life" by Robert Frost:

the old dog barks backwards without getting up
I can remember when he was a pup

^^ I can see his couplet as an epigraph to your couplet poem,

which by the way is an effective form here - but then that's why you composed it in 2-line stanzas  


"Before the moment lasts too long,
the dog bounds into the room."

^^ the dog arrives home

so do we

leave it to fido

a shepherd dog




Michael (MV)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

[SivaRamanathan]

Billy

I thought 'returns home ' but 'arrives' seems more appropriate.'Bounds' I thought has too much energy.

Siva

[Michael (MV)]

my "the dog arrives home" is a paraphrasing of the line "the dog bounds into the room."

not a workshop suggestion, esp since I read "bound" as a precise word choice to convey the experience, literally & figuratively.

"bounds" phonetically connotes "bounce" - at least to me"

again, too, I'm referencing the RF line "I can remember when he was a pup."


in the spirit of clarification



Michael (MV)

[SivaRamanathan]

Michael
Thank you for the clarification. What you suggest sound right,since you mention the buoyancy of the puppy.

Billy
Sorry. I said that with the best of intention.

Siva

[morkhenderson]

I like this - measured and grave. Also, probably unhelpfully, I like the ending. It's a brilliant counterpoint to the gravity of the moment.