Undying. Michel Faber
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Bird, Not Very Well
By the side of the road she stands:
old bird, not very well.
Will she cross? – Yes, perhaps,
in a bit, when the tiredness
passes.
I walk as if on eggshell,
to delay the flit of her wings.
But closer by, step by step, then eye to eye,
I see there will be no such thing.
This bird is waiting
patiently to die.
I am in awe of seeing a bird like this,
standing upright in extremis.
We think of birds in two states only:
dead already; death-defying.
Feathered carnage, or still flying.
Finding her, I know I’ve stumbled
on a moment in a million:
a moment even ornithologists
may never witness:
an old bird, on the point of dying.
Humbled, I intrude on her distress,
her mute, attentive helplessness.
I sit with her a while,
a hundred times her size.
My shoe-heel comes to rest
inches from her breathing breast.
My shadow lassos her personal space:
all that remains of her domain.
Yesterday, the unbounded sky; today
only a fringe of dirt
for massive cars to pass.
One loose feather, scarcely bigger than her eye,
flaps, passive, as they rustle by.
She keeps eerily still,
on the very edge
of no longer being a sparrow.
On the brink
of no longer thinking
birdy thoughts.
Lucky
In late ’88, not knowing how lucky I was,
I met a woman who would die of cancer.
I looked into her eyes, and did not see
the dark blood that would fill them when
the platelets were all spent.
All I saw was hazel irises, keen intelligence,
a lick of mascara on the lashes she would lose.
I thrilled to the laugh that pain would quell,
admired the slender neck before it swelled,
and, when she gave herself to me,
I laid my cheek against a cleavage
not yet scarred by venous catheters.
Tenderly I stroked the hair
which was, at that stage, still her own.
I spread her legs, put weight upon her ribcage,
without a worry this might break her bones.
I’d gaze, enchanted, at her naked back, the locus
for the biopsies to come.
Hurrying to meet her in the street,
I’d smile with simple pleasure just to glimpse
my darling who would gladly swallow
pesticide for her future drug regime.
I ran the last few steps to hug her,
squeezing her arms, laying on the pressure,
innocent of the bruises
this might inflict one day.
Hand in hand we walked, and I was proud
to have this destined cancer victim by my side.
I kissed her mouth and tasted only
sweet, untainted Yes.
She was lucky too, back then in ’88.
As long as she would live, she loved my body,
ignorant of what it held, and what it holds
in store for me. The skin she fondled
took pity, withheld from her its vilest secrets,
withholds them still (for now),
maintains the smooth façade
on which, on our first night, she shyly laid
her palms, her lips, her breast, her brow.
[indecipherable] kappa
The best doctor in our area
went into the woods one day
and blew his head off.
We were never told
why he did it; his funeral
was in a church, and the papers
were discreet.
A ginger-haired bear of a man,
all Scottish brawn and whiskers,
he liked you. He liked you a lot.
I think he was a little in love with you,
as so many men were.
There was a twinkle in his eye
when he’d bare your thigh
for the pethidine shot
in those halcyon days when migraine
was your big disease.
I wish his rendezvous with you
had pleased him even more.
I wish his ardour had been more profound.
I wish he’d stuck around to be the one
who diagnosed you.
I somehow doubt he would have sent
you home from the local clinic
clutching a scrap of paper scrawled with
[indecipherable] kappa,
immunoglobin [spelling error],
and a tip to go to Google and explore
what ‘multiple myeloma’ meant.
We followed that prescription
to the letter, sick with terror.
The words, as far as we could tell,
meant death, in agony, and soon.
Which just goes to show
it matters who one’s doctor is
on a given afternoon,
and that the best doctor in our area
should perhaps have been on better
medication.
Tests
You tell your children
you’re having some tests.
They’re