The Threshold
By Lisa Bristow
He is earlier than expected.
I’d hoped this reckoning would be
decades away; time enough left
to unwrap the hidden things,
to finally make them right.
Yet here he is, this March morning
blurry with grey, doctors pressing
through him in their hurry.
He starts gently, easing the sheet
from its pristine hospital corners
to examine my feet. Embarrassed,
I try to draw them away,
tuck them back under the covers.
He’s too quick; he catches them,
views with tenderness the callouses,
the chipped blue polish
there was no time to remove,
Nana Havercroft's bunions.
“Perfect,” he says.
His gaze moves up to my belly,
sighing at the ridge of staples
winding from pubis to sternum—
two tectonic plates sliced apart
then smashed together.
Hidden beneath the rust of iodine
and blood, the attempts to save
my ovaries, my bowel, my life.
His face drops.
“I'm so sorry,” he says.
Foggy with anaesthetic, I reach
into my chest, past the electrodes
telling the screaming monitors
I’m standing on the threshold.
I take out a well-worn bundle
of words I wish I could take back,
of hate that my tongue let loose,
of acts I would undo if I could.
The string is frayed,
the tissue paper fragile with
frequent unwrapping.
He takes it from me,
examines the contents briefly,
then tosses them without concern
into the blood-red plastic bag
to join my cankered ovaries,
a foot-length of bowel,
and other waste fit only to be burned.
He extends a hand towards me.
“Forgiven,” he says.
Comments