I wasn't alone
when I woke from five hoursof brain surgery. A nurse was there.
My wife, who'd waited all that time,
visited. And monitoring machines
blinked and sighed. I was lucky.
In the cold fog
of painkillers and an assaulted
brain, though, I felt
an aloneness all of us will feel
some time--a rude fact
of our existence. Right now
there are people buried
under bombed rubble
who feel absolutely alone.
I vomited regularly
for a whole day, casting
not much but bile into
plastic green bags.
My body thinks anesthesia
poison. (A lucky guess.)
That kept me distracted.
Still: that chill, that
psychic dungeon, that sense
of you, a cold infinity
of matter, and nothing else.
hans ostrom 2023
