INTENSIVE CARE NURSE
Lilting of Kildare, Cork or Kilarney,she says to lie oh so still oh;
(still as death, glad as a babe, o lucky me)
hugs my face to her bosom tightly
as she drags the sensor firm and slow
across my chest to sound and chart
a derelict heart full fathom five below.
The audio is amazing! Thunder pulses
in a surf of sloshes and sploshes,
and she smiles and makes me think,
what else can she hear down there?
Is she listening, I wonder, to those
echoes of longing light years deep,
rustling in crimson caverns, half asleep?
Is she so professional, and so discreet?
Does she ignore all that lives
even now in the core of my core:
quickenings of breath, the hot
throaty growl of lips on lips,
smacks of suction when flesh breaks
from flesh, promises at dawn,
the inevitable moving on, my
misstepping, misspeaking, misscrewing
into the lives of others?
Even my mother's tired sighs
Can be heard down there still,
as she grudges a breast to her son;
no, there are no lullabies;
a child herself, she never sang.
Now, all I desire is this Irish rose to sing ---
By the Rising of the Moon, O Danny Boy,
Cole Porter, an ad jingle, any damned thing!
Your smile, your voice could forever cure this heart
but as you leave, I can only say, "Erin go bragh."
