Doctor

Shadows run up
ghost of a face, hand, shoulder.
“Light, Ms. Van de Wyck, I need light.”
Lift that hand, no shadow there
but black right at its center,
“I’ve brought you light but still can’t see.”
Glimpse of features perfectly placed,
eyes return to shadowgazing –
not used to all that beauty.
Forward march and step in time
with breath and beating heart
a muscle creaks, floorboard moans
and shadows play dancing games.
Into a room of heat and sweat
but only of the sickly,
eyes no longer stray away but find their prey quite quickly.
Here there is no misplaced beauty,
no perfection for the ill –
so much easier to look upon,
easier to watch fate kill.
Youth escaped so long ago
but nothing there to heal.
He watches me so steadily, my face drawing nearer
but neither he nor I can look upon
his daughter’s rosy cheeks.
He misses life, vitality, he misses what he was;
and for myself, I find that I can’t look just because
she belongs in day, not in the night, no shadows should she touch,
her face and eyes lit with bright light and sun and sky and such.
The beauty of a life well lived
compared to dead or dying
and then set juxtaposed against a life still vying.