Cancer Ward, Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital
If the sisters of Bon Secours comforted
the sick, she did not see it. If their black
habits and white wimples fluttered
like doves, she did not see it. Often, nuns
sat in chapel, suited, sometimes roamed
the halls but never came in her room
while Granny was dying. We sat to the side,
counting milestones like markers:
her hair slipping from the scalp,
next her brows in wisps like down,
her skin, tinged gray, settling into folds,
and finally the priest at the door.
Granny took in his collar, the cheap
black suit, the oil, and shivered--
a hen caught by the feet staring up
at the butcher
--then waved him out.
She waited until he was gone to say
Jesus Christ! in her phlegmy bark,
a rebuff easier than opening that box
she'd locked so long ago. This was her
good help--her legacy--and we
were glad to be rid of it.
