Mercy

One rarely has good memories of a hospital:

no first loves; no fat, healthy summer days;

no pink scraps of dawn; instead, like a hangnail,

the mind catches on the soft hush of disposable

hospital shoe covers, the metallic rungs sweeping

privacy curtains closed, the shadows of shoulders

slumped, shuddering in grief. My mom taught me

to play gin rummy in a hospital. It was the day

the doctors stopped my baby brother’s heart,

sewed it up, started it again. We stole the blanket

they returned him in, as if we needed a fabric reminder

of the seconds his heart was still, of the hours we waited,

playing rummy to 1,000 and 1,000 and 1,000 again.

Years later, it’s that smell I can’t forget: crisp, medicinal,

even after countless cleanings, the retained scent of sweat,

tainted with fear. Thin white blankets, freshly folded

on the foot of my boyfriend’s father’s bed. And when

I cannot look at his family huddled in shock and sorrow,

adjusting to the verdict of cancer, I look at the blankets,

the hospital name stamped in blue, on every single blanket.

Mercy. Between the memorized route to the cafeteria,

dry erase boards for the next nurse to mark her name,

the yellow sad faces to measure pain, how is this compassion,

a leniency from God? Show me the grace in tearing holes

in the hearts of six month-old babies? The charity of cancer, eating

families away, father by grandfather? Erase the stink of hospital from my

nostrils, let my grief be dirty and jagged. I have no need for mercy.