ER #12? #13? #16, Maybe?

Passed out on the couch, the man has been made / terrified by the woman shaking him and learns she’s been / made terrified too. He has been too tired to hear / the croaking floorboards, the heaves, the toilet flush, / her weary steps back to bed. But now, she needs him / to find her a way to the ER, the last sip of water / six hours ago and yet so much still coming up / green from deep inside her.

                       What time is it? he asks. 4:30, she replies. / Can you wait because they’re both asleep?

                    I knew you’d say that, she spits at him. / He wants her to reject this is happening / for as long as she can because it will happen / for the long time coming. What’s a few hours, / what’s a day of denial but a chance to take / a day away from this sickness?

But she will not agree. She will / instead yank the car keys from the rack, / which falls off its nails and onto the floor. She will muster / a Fine, I’ll take myself, and she will. / He is left then / with the boy and girl asleep and knowing nothing / of being terrified into guilt, into shame, into recognition / that, yes, this is their life once again.

Apology

No matter the noise of two kids arguing / over what they’ll eat for breakfast or which cartoon to watch, / the man will hear the garage door inch open, / the kitchen door creak wide. Of this, he is sure / because shame has a way of giving you the power / of hindsight, to see—no, to feel deep the caving in / of your center, your heart.

It’s not until after 11 / he hears one door, two, / the creaking of fifteen steps, and then one more door’s close. / The man weighs his options and stays holding the girl on the couch. / There are only so many I’m sorrys / she’ll be willing to believe. He’ll save / this one for another time.

Prolonging

Even with her retching, her headaches, their collective wishing / sometimes for this to have never happened, the man / must add injury to insult twice a week by injecting her / with progesterone. It is odd, at first, / that his muscles have memorized each step / in insuring this misery will continue. She can barely / stand for the two minutes he is to slowly push / this life-keeping into her. She can barely keep / the tears in. He wants to know if she can / forgive him if he suggests maybe skipping one or forgetting, / conveniently, which day sustains her / on this regimen. But she always remembers, never / gives in to what would be so much easier, the path / back to herself so much quicker than this needs to be.

Strong

Her body’s work to break the world / open again continues in the dark of their room. / Of her heart. Of her mind and soul, / if that word is okay to use, if it’s to be believed in. / Because too often now, the man doesn’t / want to carry the burden of lighting two of them. His faith is / ill equipped; it is young in the ways that don’t matter, / and old in the ways that do. He trusts it / as long as it works to keep her / from crying, from damning God for letting / this punishment happen to her. The man tries / to answer her curses with prayer, with light / at the end of this tunnel, with a simple, prodding, You’re strong. / You’re so much stronger than this thing, which is nothing / special but at least better than silence. He thinks / he hears her reply; it is only a catch / before she looses again into the kidney-shaped basin. / She wipes her mouth with a tissue and reports, / I have nothing in me anymore.