CHEMO, 1985 by Marlene Hickey

He never let me come into the room,
chose to face the executioner alone.

“That needle,” he once told me. “Huge.
Like what we used to use on farms
for giving shots to cattle.
Syringe, the devil’s tool,
bright liquid, cheerful-colored poison.
No escape from nausea and the pain.”

Sinking into the deep black chair
he leaned back blindly.
With dreadful apprehension
he willed himself to tumble
through the earth and vanish
from this dream of fear.
The nurse grasped his arm,
halted his fall to freedom,
forced him back into reality.

The venom flowed into his veins,
drained away his strength.
In his clenched brain, a lightning strike!
Organs on fire, fingertips aflame,
burning at the stake, he forced open
his eyes to bring back life
and beheld an empty universe.

In the waiting room I sat
paging through ancient magazines,
my mind a maelstrom
of medieval tortures
and a fierce desire to take his pain
upon myself. But hidden deep within
myself, was there not perhaps
a secret hallelujah that it was not I?

If today, My Husband, the question
were asked again, and you could relive
the decision to walk through the fire,
what answer would you give, knowing
that the end would be the same,
forever the same? Oblivion