About the Book

Poems of love, pain, hope, and recovery written from the landscape of an illness within a marriage. The poems follow the experiences of both patient and caregiver from the day of an unexpected and frightening quadruple bypass to recovery.

Both caregivers and patients will see their experiences mirrored in these poems.  Medical professionals will get an intimate glimpse of what it feels like to be the patient or the family member.  Friends and family who are not living the day-to-day experience can use these insights to share more fully in their loved one's path.

Here are two sample poems and more poems can be found on this page.

Scents

I walk into the animal heat
of closed rooms.
A cacophony of scents
moves among the machines
the aridity of bleach, the blanched air,
the surprise of jasmine as an aide
bends to adjust the pillows.
Wilted broccoli steams on the lunch tray.
There are swells to this current,
this way of naming and knowing,
a place, a person, a thing.

Watch

You are becoming yourself again,
pulling on your quirks and habits
like an old shirt.
You scratch at the limitations.
I stand back and watch you
slip into the day
the way fog curls around trees.

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