The Ship Pounding

Each morning I made my way among gangways, elevators, and nurses’ pods to Jane’s room to interrogate the grave helpers who tended her through the night while the ship’s massive engines kept its propellers turning. Week after week, I sat by her bed with black coffee and the Globe. The passengers on this voyage wore masks or cannulae or dangled devices that dripped chemicals into their wrists. I believed that the ship traveled to a harbor of breakfast, work, and love. I wrote: "When the infusions are infused entirely, bone marrow restored and lymphoblasts remitted, I will take my wife, bald as Michael Jordan, back to our dog and day." Today, months later at home, these words turned up on my desk as I listened in case Jane called for help, or spoke in delirium, ready to make the agitated drive to Emergency again for readmission to the huge vessel that heaves water month after month, without leaving port, without moving a knot, without arrival or destination, its great engines pounding.