Death Rattle
Back when five and dimes
still made black and whites,
I loved the cloudy bubbles
made by pouring soda over
brown-syruped vanilla ice cream.
Today, the ShopRite-brand Dark
Roast is bitter without complexity.
I donate the open-but-full can
to my office. I leave my Blackberry
behind on my white desk calendar
as I rush off after hours.
I blame it on hunger. Someone else’s
turkey pot pie is in the toaster oven.
At the ICU family meeting, we talk
favorite stuffings until the latecomers
arrive. Then we ask a man’s family how
much they understand before
we recommend taking their father
off the ventilator while keeping him
comfortable. On my way past shops
on Arkansas Avenue, I glance
sideways at the inside of Skechers,
an intense, white fluorescent
island floating in the asphalt night.
Shoeboxes, white with pink lids
like thousands of iced cakes, cover
every wall. I’m looking into a dollhouse
bakery. Black Friday sale signs make
dark silhouettes that block the fairy light.
On the Expressway, a series of bright blue
billboards shout white lettering:
Nice try, Sandy, but we’re Jersey strong.
I’m not cheered or encouraged.
Near home, I hear a soft rattling,
like a chain saw in the distance.
So many trees need to be dismembered.
A dry leaf is caught in my wiper blade.
It oscillates in the wind,
sings in a deep register.
About This Poem:
- The prompt for this poem was to recount the events of a single day.
- It was written in an Advanced Poetry class taught by Cynthia Arrieu King at Stockton University. (The same class in which I wrote “I’m Still Your Doctor.”)
- The day in the poem was in November 2012, after Hurricane Sandy struck, before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure why I started the poem in the distant past, except perhaps to evoke black-and-white photographs. Black and white images repeat in this poem.
- This poem was published online (scroll down to the bottom of the page) to accompany the publication of an anthology called The Healer’s Burden. My submitted poems weren’t accepted for the anthology, but they chose to feature one of my poems on the website.
- I was asked to make a short statement to accompany the poem.
This poem describes a day-in-the-life of an essential worker in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Despite the recurring motif, there is little that is black and white in end-of-life decisions.
