Kenneth Edward Hart

A New Jersey author

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Open Heart with Complications

December 26, 2011 by Kenneth Hart

Open Heart

( with complications)

My step-mother’s voice was choked.

“Your father’s on the operating table.

They can’t stop the bleeding. They can’t

put his heart back in… he won’t clot.”

 

For the next few weeks, I drove to the Heart

Center wondering if my father was still…

 

He was in The Intensive Care of intensive cares

attached to tubes on the side of his neck,

tubes that went into his lungs,

tubes that came out of his chest,

a tube into each of his arms and out his penis:

 

Draining and pumping, attached to machines

That caused his breath, machines that fed his blood

machines with dials and lights and suction cups

that were everywhere but the privacy of his mind

which would not let him go.

 

Just below each bed at a panel, sat a nurse

with pencils and charts and circulating doctors.

Immediate family was allowed to see for fifteen minutes

once, every two hours.

I bent his arms and legs and stared with fear, curiosity and awe

at his helpless and unfamiliar body:

the shrunken tattoo of his name on his arm,

the cold white skin of his legs

the puffed, frail chest, the twitching face

the closed eyes that sometimes seemed to want to open.

 

Continuously, I spoke to him.

I had wished most to be with him when I couldn’t be.

I thought about how this body would have treated me

if we had been together when I was growing up.

 

I’m told that it’s often like that,

but it felt good to comb his hair.

It was a wonder to see a flash of eyes

That I learned were very blue.

 

When they told us that he’d had a stroke

I resolved that I would not leave him like that

and plotted how it might be necessary to help him die.

 

My wife said that I was being crazy,

but it was one of those times when sanity was less than enough

and I was crazed because it was how I felt when I used to pray.

“Daddy,” I would say

“You’re gonna get better.

You’re brave and tough and if that’s not enough,

I promise that it will be OK.”

 

And I pleaded with the distance to let me get through.

I begged the distance to learn new ways.

 

As my father came around,

the tubes and machines were gradually removed.

and they took him to regular Intensive Care

and waited to see how much of him remained.

 

First he opened his eyes and could turn his head.

Then he could move on one side.

then on half of the other.

He tried to communicate with a letter board, shaky finger spelling,

Illegible notes…

And when they took the tube out of his throat,

he talked to me.

Filed Under: Poems

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Recent Posts

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  • Lunch Whistles ( Jazz)
  • Humpy Trumpy
  • The Lord Knows

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  • The Tempo of Experience
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