Sun and Moon

For Donald Clark Drugged and drowsy but not asleep I heard my blind roommate's daughter helping her with her meal: “What's that? Squash?” “No. It's spinach.” Back from a brain-scan, she dozed to the sound of the Soaps: adultery, amnesia, shady business deals, and long, white hospital halls.... No separation between life and art. I heard two nurses whispering: Mr. Malcomson had died. An hour later one of them came to say that a private room was free. A chill spring breeze perturbed the plastic drape. I lay back on the new bed, and had a vision of souls stacked up like pelts under my soul, which was ill— so heavy with grief it kept the others from rising. No varicolored tubes serpentined beneath the covers; I had the vital signs of a healthy, early-middle-aged woman. There was nothing to cut or dress, remove or replace. A week of stupor. Sun and moon rose and set over the small enclosed court, the trees.... The doctor’s face appeared and disappeared over the foot of the bed. By slow degrees the outlandish sadness waned. Restored to my living room I looked at the tables, chairs, and pictures with something like delight, only pale, faint—as from a great height. I let the phone ring; the mail accrued unopened on the table in the hall.