Derailed

I.
It was some other man’s body:
another man’s scar,
another man’s ostomy,
another man’s pain.
Not mine.
Not the man I knew before.
Where did he go?
What happened to him?
He vanished, and in his place,
this frail old man,
whose shrivelled skin and bony body,
stare back at me in the morning mirror.
Not me.

II.
My world
is now blood tests and vitals requests,
scans and bedpans,
regimens and specimens.
It is time,
measured by medications,
filled by fluids,
and organized by check ins and check-ups.
It is life,
seen through a green filter:
Johnny shirts, doctor’s scrubs, hospital walls.
It is attention,
focused on digestion
while avoiding discomfort and dehydration.
It is meals,
being the first to begin,
unable to eat half the food put out,
and being the last to finish.
And it is recognizing,
this is not a dream
from which I will wake anytime soon.

III.
It wasn’t much:
a trip to the gallery,
a couple of slices of pizza,
a few sips of beer,
an hour of conversation with friends.
For a while,
I forgot my life had been derailed.
For a while,
I felt the rocking motion of the train,
clickety-clacking its way home.

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