Jesus: A Cure for What Ails You
It is always night when
I imagine taking people to the hospital.
In the pale yellow light of
street lamps I unload you from
the back of my 1999 four-door sedan
that smells faintly of fast food and
tobacco, and place you lovingly in
one of the blue wheelchairs they have
in Emergency Reception.

It is about four in the morning and you
cannot sit up straight, but
we packed you into the car when you
started turning green. It is about
four in the morning and on our frantic
drive to the hospital we pass a church,
and the letters in the marquee barely register,
not until I am standing, bleary-eyed
with a coarse hospital kleenex and a cigarette,
outside triage, trying to call my mom.

Some small part of me will maybe like
to speak with the pastor who presides over
deaths hooked up to heart monitors, so
you know exactly when they give up the ghost.
Some small part of me will maybe like
to pray silently to him, but
you know how I feel about religion and
you know how I feel about this.