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Leah Fritz

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The Cure

At the lift, waiting for the door
to open automatically, then close
behind me, shutting out that scene before

I’m caught forever in this crablike pose ....
What if it weren’t just an interval
but, like the waxen figure over there, I froze,

as in the childhood game, impaled, until
some nurse removed the intravenous line
and death called ‘time’? ‘They say it is my will’,

she said, confidingly. ‘And, oh, that’s fine
for them. What do they know?’ Her voice so young
in such a ruin of a face, near mine

enough to graze me like a mirror. ‘Strong!
She could carry two of me, that nurse.
What do they know about .... living .... so long?’

Self-conscious of impatient legs perverse
with health, I fled her eyes and trained mine on
the stationary door, which in a burst

of stretchers, opened wide, not going down,
but up. I reached into my handbag for
a cigarette; then, guilt-tripped by her frown:

‘What do you know?’ I whispered to the door
that closed behind her. Striding toward the stairs
and out to freedom, I lit up once more,

took deep, deliberate drags on toxic air.

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