"While Death Ticks on"
Responding to lines from Donna de la Perrière’s poem "Emergency"
1
"the body fights time, keeps
making its plans"
In retrospect, I know what instant my grandmother surrendered her life. She was in the hospital when I reached the city. Infection had taken to her lungs. Her life was in danger. Doctors began a round of antibiotics.
My grandmother's health had deteriorated fast the past year. She aimed to make it to my cousin's wedding that summer. She talked about the wedding, sitting in the hospital. Two earrings, pendants dangling from hooks, hung from her ears. They were the earrings she planned to wear to the ceremony.
In retrospect, I see it was the act of taking out the earrings. The antibiotics did well and then they did not. She got healthier for a few hours and then her health took a turn. She knew before the doctors. My grandmother took out the earrings. The doctors hoped another antibiotic would work.
The plans the body makes: My grandmother woke in a fever. She woke in semi-delirium. Her hands took one earring out. They took out the other. My grandmother placed the first, the second firmly on the side-table.
The plans the body makes: The pierced ear spends a life closing up. The post, the hook--a holding open, a delay of flesh's tide.
The body keeps making its plans: It keeps moving. The body fleshes through time. A flash of hospital light on an earring. What was opened closes. The body is shut.
2
"honestly hospitals don't bother me
much--I grew up in them, loved the clean
endlessness of the hallway, the cafeterias'
small containers of jello or soft beans--"
Family deaths came in quick succession for a decade. My father's side was wide the generation before his. When the end is "natural," the slide into death is cleanliness and routine: I smelled bleach in nursing homes, looked at the minimalist pattern of hospital tiles for days, listened as 40's big band jazz held fewer stations over the years, fewer times slots, echoing into silence.
The last passed body is the clearest to memory. The earlier bodies slide one into the other. The bodies I remember are the bodies of my family. Their bodies build my body. Theirs slide into mine. Whose eye, whose skin tone, whose pitted tongue, whose cauliflower ear, whose breath wavering over perioral wrinkles, peach hair, lips? The wrist I see in the corner of my eye—is it mine? Didn't I watch it beat blue veins, palm up, atop over-crisp sheets?
3
"they give my mother one of the 'big rooms'--
they take her up, make her comfortable--
they remove her soiled clothes but leave
the shit smell--I tear pages out of a kids' book
about a child bear to write this down--"
I am sick the weekend I first read "Emergency." It's a minor cold, but the cold calls me to notice my body. I notice the body in Donna de la Perrière’s poem. I notice the body in all of Donna's poems: Her poems may write loved bodies, cared for bodies, but these are bodies living in a world where violence is always near. Our lives are precarious. We live near the edge of us.
I notice my cough. I notice my breathing. The violence in my lungs is slight but milks out a sharpness, bringing mucus up through the throat. The body plans to heave and muscle off pneumonia. The body keeps making its plans. Intruder bodies keep making theirs.
The poem and the body, my grandmother and Donna's mother, my body and another and another and another and another: The body fleshes through time. Je est un autre. I pray to the Other who I am and never will be. Stave off fever. The Other prays. I never will be the I who I am. A body coughs. I hear myself wheezing. Keep making plans. The post, the hook: The body is not yet shut.
1
"the body fights time, keeps
making its plans"
In retrospect, I know what instant my grandmother surrendered her life. She was in the hospital when I reached the city. Infection had taken to her lungs. Her life was in danger. Doctors began a round of antibiotics.
My grandmother's health had deteriorated fast the past year. She aimed to make it to my cousin's wedding that summer. She talked about the wedding, sitting in the hospital. Two earrings, pendants dangling from hooks, hung from her ears. They were the earrings she planned to wear to the ceremony.
In retrospect, I see it was the act of taking out the earrings. The antibiotics did well and then they did not. She got healthier for a few hours and then her health took a turn. She knew before the doctors. My grandmother took out the earrings. The doctors hoped another antibiotic would work.
The plans the body makes: My grandmother woke in a fever. She woke in semi-delirium. Her hands took one earring out. They took out the other. My grandmother placed the first, the second firmly on the side-table.
The plans the body makes: The pierced ear spends a life closing up. The post, the hook--a holding open, a delay of flesh's tide.
The body keeps making its plans: It keeps moving. The body fleshes through time. A flash of hospital light on an earring. What was opened closes. The body is shut.
2
"honestly hospitals don't bother me
much--I grew up in them, loved the clean
endlessness of the hallway, the cafeterias'
small containers of jello or soft beans--"
Family deaths came in quick succession for a decade. My father's side was wide the generation before his. When the end is "natural," the slide into death is cleanliness and routine: I smelled bleach in nursing homes, looked at the minimalist pattern of hospital tiles for days, listened as 40's big band jazz held fewer stations over the years, fewer times slots, echoing into silence.
The last passed body is the clearest to memory. The earlier bodies slide one into the other. The bodies I remember are the bodies of my family. Their bodies build my body. Theirs slide into mine. Whose eye, whose skin tone, whose pitted tongue, whose cauliflower ear, whose breath wavering over perioral wrinkles, peach hair, lips? The wrist I see in the corner of my eye—is it mine? Didn't I watch it beat blue veins, palm up, atop over-crisp sheets?
3
"they give my mother one of the 'big rooms'--
they take her up, make her comfortable--
they remove her soiled clothes but leave
the shit smell--I tear pages out of a kids' book
about a child bear to write this down--"
I am sick the weekend I first read "Emergency." It's a minor cold, but the cold calls me to notice my body. I notice the body in Donna de la Perrière’s poem. I notice the body in all of Donna's poems: Her poems may write loved bodies, cared for bodies, but these are bodies living in a world where violence is always near. Our lives are precarious. We live near the edge of us.
I notice my cough. I notice my breathing. The violence in my lungs is slight but milks out a sharpness, bringing mucus up through the throat. The body plans to heave and muscle off pneumonia. The body keeps making its plans. Intruder bodies keep making theirs.
The poem and the body, my grandmother and Donna's mother, my body and another and another and another and another: The body fleshes through time. Je est un autre. I pray to the Other who I am and never will be. Stave off fever. The Other prays. I never will be the I who I am. A body coughs. I hear myself wheezing. Keep making plans. The post, the hook: The body is not yet shut.