No Body Here on Earth
Her cancer broke through chemo’s flame at last.
Her lungs held on for months, but now that’s passed.
Just morphine and her oxygen remain;
A Band-Aid on her rasping and her pain.
Her flailing hand finds mine and feels so cold
My vigil is my vow to have and hold.
Joined hands together gently in the night,
I smile and watch her sleep till morning’s light.
I view her scans and something in me stabs.
A snake prowls in her lungs among the crabs.
Pneumonia finds the cancer in her chest.
The gasps and heaves refuse to give her rest.
I cry out to the nurse but won’t let go.
The drug goes in. The breathing starts to slow.
“Why won’t you take her Lord? Please hear my plea!
To watch my tortured wife is killing me.”
This cancer’s henchman slithers toward her throat.
The march of death plays one discordant note.
What devil’s weight restrains her rise to bliss?
The snake that grips her throat exhales a hiss.
To look into her eyes once more I pray.
Lids flicker and she smiles, then drifts away.
The pretty hand I held throughout our lives
Now rests in peace in mine when death arrives.
When cancer had confined her to our bed,
A poem about Christ’s body once she read.
As somnolence brought night upon her day,
With whispered voice to me she strained to say,
“Dear husband as I die, I challenge you,
Remember this in all you say and do.
The only body Christ has here on earth
Is ours, to show his ways and do his work.”
Gerard Maritato is a retired family physician and teacher living in Maryville, Tennessee.
My sincerest condolences for your loss, Dr. Marinate. RIP. Your poem is a powerful remembrance. Peace be with you.
I offer up a prayer for you both this morning, praying in Jesus’ name.
Dr. Maritato, there’s no editing function here that I can find. But there’s delusional interference from autocorrect.