The Visit
When death came,
she was lying on her side in a hospital bed,
ninety-five pounds of fragility and iron,
nose and forehead pressed against the railing,
her body quaking with the effort of every breath.
Death came,
lifted off the oxygen mask,
placed one hand beneath her shoulder
and another under her hip,
prepared to take her with him.
Her concentration broken –
the concentration of the dying
on the labor of holding onto life –
she opened an exhausted brown eye and said,
“I want a root-beer float.”
This gave death a bit of a pause,
not because she didn’t want to go
– after all, few do –
but because she so clearly had
other things on her mind.
He tried again.
“Rose,” he whispered into her ear, “Rose.”
Roused, she rolled painfully onto her back,
fixed him with an aggrieved brown glare,
and repeated, “I want a root-beer float!”
Death was offended – so serious a matter,
so unappreciatively brushed aside! –
and ever-so-slightly intimidated.
He returned her to the bed,
gave his cape a frustrated twirl
and muttered as he retreated,
“I’ll be back.”
And he was.
….
…..
This poem is from the chapbook Wonder-filled and Strange by Elizabeth A. Gibson (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/wonder-filled-and-strange-by-elizabeth-a-gibson/
Elizabeth A. Gibson has a B.A. in English and Creative Writing and an M.A. in American Studies, both from Michigan State University. She has been published in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, Two Hawks Quarterly, The Tishman Review, and Iconoclast Magazine, among others. She works as a researcher and technical writer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and recently returned to live in Michigan after many years away.
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