Rehabilitation Ward

"I can very well do without God both in my life and in my paintings,
but I cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater
than I, which is my life--the power to create." 

-Vincent van Gogh



I am home now. Hospital is assuming the cowl of myth.
Though as always among humans there are no Hollywood endings,
there is still our lot of suffering, and I have mine.
Although the burden of my lot has lessened now, and I feel human again.
Perhaps over-medicated, over-stretched, a little like Bilbo Baggins
when he felt like butter that has been spread too thin,
drug too many times over the same miserable piece of toast.
Physical Therapy is a twin edged mistress. All praise Her.

The first night of Rehab I arrived late, just in time to settle in to night mode.
Nightime in Rehab is for waiting. It is for the resting of bodies and spirits,
for the taking of meds, and for watching tv. I curled up in the cacophony
of sick-sounds and blaring football, unsure if I could continue.

The next morning I discovered why they call it Rehabilitation.
They broke me down and built me back into an awareness of Safety.
Thou shalt not endanger the stupefyingly expensive Brain Surgery, Safety...Ohm...
I love them and I curse them, and that is as it should be.
I would not have walked without them.
And I did, over 220' on a walker, when I stopped counting.

Now that I am home and back to work, I automatically began
cooking my experiences down into verse, shucking them of their
symbols and globbing new ones on.
A word though, not all opinions are those of the author.
In this work the subject retains some autonomy.
Here then, without further jibber-jabber is Rehabilitation:


Part I: Jose

Have you ever wondered how it might feel
to forget how to run?

Nurse Practitioner of the Dayshift,
Jose told the story of He versus Car:
his trauma was a debilitating hit and run.

They put cables and long screws in his head.
They put needles in his arms,
wires on his chest and a tube in his penis.
Matter of factly, Jose said that he could hardly move.

Sunlight inundated room 718
of Jackson Memorial Hospital:
illuminated every flinching detail
lit every swarming corner
where things that eat pain lurk in the daytime.

Jose stood, stripping the bed of its foulness.
Washed in morning light, his golden-caramel face
was solemnly composed. He spoke
as he worked, glancing across to me
occasionally, where I fidgeted
uneasy in my wheelchair.

My hands—
(when I stop paying attention to them)
constantly seek the scar where beneath tight,
fragile stitches, rough against my fingers,
they burned out a tiny piece of my brain;
the brainskin where they grafted a piece of someone
who, having died, donated to me a priceless gift.

Turning again—
his too shrewd eyes lighting upon me
measuring with care, Jose picked up the thread
of his story. He spoke of how he hated
the Asian Man washing his ass and jewels

after an enema. He spoke of walking at last:
with the long screws still in his head;
of shuddering down a cold hall, the cables snaking
away beside him; the tube trailing from his penis
and the iv pole straggling next to him,
small wheels squeaking.

He spoke—
of walking alone to the bathroom one night
of how he fell to the floor,
bouncing hard, bouncing halo
of screws and shocking pain.

Jose said, "The key to running
is to have the will to keep walking."

He spoke then of lying on the floor
with iv pole askew, its precious cargo scattered.
Jose’s hands, everworking, paused.

His eyes—hard, black marbles
glazed over with distant memory.

He spoke of the hated Asian Man
lifting him gentle from the floor.
How he wept
seeing at last beyond the hated face.
How he wept
because he had finally learned to accept help.



~D.C. McKenzie

-End Transmission-