by Michel Faber
your humerus, your pelvis and your spine.
The scans and dyes allow each one to shine.
The Second-Last Time
We never knew
when it would be
the last time.
It was important
not to know.
We made love
the second-last time,
always the second-last time,
as many times
as time allowed.
We’d go to bed
and put our heads
together, trying to find
where you had gone.
Your illness was a vast
terrain, but somehow
again and again
we found you.
Refractory
The killing’s done offstage.
On all the websites, no one ever dies
of your disease. They swap advice,
give updates on their holidays,
celebrate anniversaries
of their remissions.
They cheer each other on.
Three thousand musketeers.
Myeloma’s on the run.
Then, one by one,
they falter in their flight.
Where do they land?
Why don’t we hear from them again?
Why is a search party never sent?
Each time a cancer buddy disappears,
she, or he, winks out without a trace,
and, like the smoothest sleight-of-hand,
a trembling newbie, armed with fears,
a valiant doctor, symptoms, and a treatment plan,
slips in to take their place.
Old People In Hospital
Possessing, of their own,
only a toothbrush and a comb,
like victims of earthquake, fire or flood
fleeing from the threat of death or blood
they’ve come
for the sanction to go home, restored.
Instead, bored
in their appointed cots they lie
waiting to be cured at last, and die.
Darling Little Dress
On the way
to the hospital today
I saw a darling little dress.
No, not too little: just the right
size for you now.
The label says
14
but you know how that can mean
almost anything.
I’d say
it’s more like a 12,
but not a tight 12.
No, not at all.
Stylish, light and well-designed
in stretchy fabric.
Quite a find.
No, not baggy, not what you would call
a tent. I only meant . . . elasticised.
There is give, that’s what I’m saying;
there is give.
The sleeves have cuffs to stow
a tissue in, but otherwise
are loose. But not too loose.
Just comfy on your swollen arms.
Not that your arms are
very swollen, just slightly
lacking muscle tone
after the broken bone,
just in need of exercise.
The bosom?
Promising, I think, at first glance.
There’s a real chance this might be
nearly optimal.
You’d look shapely; as shapely
as possible
now that you can’t wear a bra
anymore, and now your figure
has grown bigger.
The cons? Well, nothing much.
The neckline – I should let you know –
is not as low as you require.
How high? Here, where I touch.
I see you frown, but listen:
this gown, it stretches,
so when the crimson flushes come,
you could simply pull it down.
And at the back? It comes up high,
and I suspect – without seeing it on,
you realise – that it might minimise
the hump that dexamethasone
has dumped in there.
It has no stitches to tear,
no buttons to strain,
no zips to pull in vain.
It would go well with your hair –
no, not the brown you have on now,
another one.
Will it cover your bum? I’m not sure,
that’s why I took this picture
for you to study at your leisure.
Yes, I’m aware that all your tights
are threadbare at the rear,
the seams half-perished and worn through,
but I only thought: this dress
would look so beautiful on you
even in bed.
But yes, I must concede, now that we
have the evidence before us,
it does appear quite small.
I could have sworn it said
14, but I agree, it doesn’t look it.
Which maybe is the asset of it,
now that your favourite smocks
are on the ample side,
your chemotherapy couture,
your fluid retention range.
This darling little frock
would make a lovely change.
But no, now that you mention it,
I don’t believe they had it
in a 16.
It was a one-off,
end-of-season sort of thing,
that I saw on a rail
in a sunny street, not far
from a busy intersection
full of healthy women walking
briskly past this dress
in the opposite direction
from where you are.
Escape Attempts
A tunnel under a prison
dug out with a spoon.
It has been done.
Don’t tell me it has not been done.
Let me put your slippers on.
We’re going to get you home.
Place one foot on this stair.
One hand on this banister.
Bend at the knee (the stronger one).
Ascend by fifteen centimetres.
It can be done.
It has been done.
Pretend your legs were broken
in an accident, and now
are on the mend.
This is not about cancer.
This is about the Achilles tendon.
This is about the soleus and the tibial nerve.
This is routine convalescence.
This is common physio.
Take my arm, let’s go.
Today, two stairs.
Tomorrow, three.
Twenty to get into the plane.
We’re going to get you home.
We’re going to get you fit.
We’ll get you back in shape.
You’ll wear clothes of your own
at last, and shoes, real shoes,
and your hair will grow.
It all starts with a single step.
It all depends on how resolutely
you desire escape.
Pretend your legs were broken.
A few stairs and I’ll let you sleep.
It’ll be easier than it was before,
you’ll see. Trust me. Please.
Just take my arm.
Or let me take yours.
Let’s get this done.
Don’t be
like that.
Nipples
Nipples all over you.
Excited peaks of plasma.
Red, purple, some with areolas.
Your flesh is riotous with the pleasure
of predatory cells.
Each nipple swells
a bit more each day.
I have decided
to watch the one on your foot.
Watch it lovingly
; until it flattens
and disappears.
Or until you do.
Whichever happens
first.
Ten Tumours On Your Scalp
Reeling from what I had
uncovered,
I washed the blood and sweat
out of your wig.
It came up good as new.
Ready to go back on you.
Switzerland
You tried to phone but
Dignitas was busy.
You begged me, so I wrote instead.
My typing fingers made vibrations
on your bed.
But Switzerland gave no reply.
Or, If Only
It’s so easy to die
when you’d really rather not.
The menu of quick demises
is marvellously ample.
You can, for example:
slip on a leaf and break your neck,
be squashed by falling rocks,
be splattered by a train,
be zapped by an electric shock,
burst a vessel in the brain,
sink with a cruise ship,
choke on a fruit pip,
be stung by an exotic mite,
perish in a freak fire,
bleed to death from a bird bite,
be stabbed in someone else’s fight,
expire from a hiccup of the heart,
be eaten by an alligator,
be gassed by a faulty radiator,
discover suddenly
that you have a fatal allergy.
This air freshener – ‘Magnolia Vanilla’ –
issues a stern warning
that solvent abuse can kill
instantly.
How strange, then, that you and I
have so few options open to us.
We’d jump at any offer.
Any speedy death would do us.
Is there no amenable jihadist
who could be persuaded to behead you?
We’d be quite willing to insult Islam
if some resolute young man
could bring his sword to Parkside Hospital
(on the District line to Wimbledon,
then catch the 93 bus).
Or, if only
we could transport you to Westminster,
where armed police stand ready
for terrorists to jump out of the mob.
Your morphine pump – that gizmo squirting dope
into your gut – would make a suspicious bump
if hidden under a shirt. We could hope
it looked enough like a bomb
for the cops to mow you down.
Or, if only
we could buy a ticket to the top
of Tokyo Tower, and smash a window for you.
Or, if only – let’s be less ambitious –
you could go to Disneyland, and
unleash yourself from a roller coaster,
fly into the sky of Anaheim or Marne-la-Vallée.
Or, if only you could walk (for goodness’ sake,
how simple should this be to organise?)
just a few steps from your bed
into a cab, and from the cab onto a busy motorway,
and, in a wink, be dead.
Instead, we wait.
Each muscle takes its time to lapse.
Each corpuscle spins out its collapse.
We wait for your cells to decay,
one by one.
We wait for each nerve to succumb,
nerve by nerve.
Observe, minute by minute,
millimetre by millimetre,
the tumours take
what they do not deserve.
Another Season
On your bedside cabinet:
a wristwatch with a very quiet tick.
You are too sick to wear it anymore.
It’s the old-fashioned kind.
It does not know it is forgotten.
It takes up hardly any space.
Its face points at the window.
It sees the trees in miniature.
You do not see the trees at all.
Spring it was, when you last wore this watch.
Now it is summer, and you do not know.
Your watch is keeping time for you.
When you are ready, its tiny hands
will show they never stopped
being utterly
loyal.
Cowboys
As a child, watching westerns on TV,
I knew cowboys
could be shot and not
die.
They were only dead when
a trickle of blood
appeared at one side
of their mouth,
down to the chin.
That trickle meant
The End.
Now I watch you sleep
and, at the corner of your mouth,
that same dark cedilla.
Together last night we
laboured to clean your teeth.
You with your spastic hands,
me with toothbrush and plastic pick.
Chicken crud between your molars
lodged stubborn as your cancer.
We won
in the end
but fought a little too
hard.
Fluid Balance
I’ve kept a measure of your sips,
your shuffling visits to the loo,
captured in a blue dish inside the bowl.
The 75 ml of milk
in your corn flakes.
The soup, the custard.
The bags of saline.
The bags of blood.
The platelets, thick as the orange sauce
on the duck you never ate.
I ate it for you.
I drink your water for you, too,
in these last days when
I’m no longer measuring.
Purring
Purring was your favourite sound.
Having slept all night at your feet,
the cat – whichever of our cats was then alive –
would wake up when you finally stirred.
You’d lure him, or her, onto your chest
and the joyful noise would thereupon begin,
released by a tickle under the chin.
How many times have I lain by your side
while your hands caressed sweet-smelling fur,
and the best part of an hour slipped by
as a rapturous mammal purred?
Now that same noise can be heard:
an animal presence, with us, in this room.
All those who enter, listen:
where’s it coming from?
That rhythmic, guttural thrum,
that gentle growling in the diaphragm.
It’s your lungs: your lungs are purring.
Presumptuous fluid burbles in your breast.
A nurse comes and injects midazolam.
A doctor recommends glycopyrronium.
They’re keen for you to die
serenely, like a baby with its lips around
a nipple of morphine. They know what kind
of death is best; they do not like
what’s happening to your breath. Their mission
is to stop this bestial sound occurring.
This purring.
This purring.
This purring.
The Time You Chose
It was a smallish space
and we lay close together.
No doubt, to some extent,
we breathed each other’s breath.
The angle of my chair
in tandem to your bed
meant that I couldn’t see your face,
although I was an arm’s length from your head.
I dozed. The hour was late.
You were, I’m almost certain, unaware
that I was even there.
I dozed. You were
not dead.
The bedclothes rose and fell.
You were helpless and scary,
like a bear in labour,
like a newborn baby.
For twenty minutes, thirty maybe,
my eyes were closed.
That was the time you chose.
Tight Pullover
In life, you did not relish
being hugged by strange men.
Now, the mortuary van is parked
right near Reception in the dark
at the climax of this hellish night,
and two guys in fancy suits –
one young, one not so young –
are here to rendezvous.
They treat you gently,
undress you with gloved fingers,
roll you on your side,
roll you on your back,
roll you into their arms,
clutch you to their chests.
They shroud you in gauzy white,
wrap you up, immobilise
your limbs, you, who panicked
when caught in a tight pullover.
In minutes they are satisfied.
I have watched but not touched,
impotent to spare you from their grasp.
I thank them, these strange men.
These men you never knew
and did not wish to know.
These men who take you with them
to their van.
II
F.W. Paine Ltd, Bryson House, Horace Road, Kingston
This is the way it is:
we’ll spend the night apart.
I have your new address
on a printed card
but I don’t know this city well enough
to picture where you’re sleeping.
Besides, it’s over now.
I’m surplus to requirements
You are with others of your kind
and I, at last, am absent from your mind.
There are so many people I should tell
that you have left me.
A challenge for another day.
How warm it is! It has become July.
I look up as I walk, and in the sky
I see the first of all the moons
we will not share.
Amateur
The planning of your death
left a lot to be desired.
Right in the middle
of the school vacations.
Most of your teacher friends
vaguely imagined you were
on the mend. Thirty years’ worth
of children you had taught
no doubt recalled your kindness,
your good humour, your inspiration,
but thought – as grown-up pupils tend to do –
that you’d vanished from the earth
after their graduation.
Now my internet is down