Remember Me
Transfusion ordered,
I cower in restless hope,
saving fluid, donor's gift,
infusion to commence.
Cannula pierces the bag,
and horror suffuses the doctor's face;
to transgress in flowing blood's
indelible.
Or so it seems.
Of a sudden,
feeling freed,
we laugh.
'Forgive me?'
'Promise to remember me
when I'm gone?'
Before the nurse approaches
all's wiped clean.
©Janet Henderson 14.01.15
This poem was inspired by an incident which happened many years ago when I was nursing terminally ill patients. It stuck in my mind for many reasons partly to do with the desire we all have to know that we matter to those who care for us, we are more than our physical selves, and partly to do with the haunting connection between the spilling of blood and being remembered. On the last night of His life, Jesus used a cup of wine to symbolise His blood and said, 'Do this in remembrance of me.'
I cower in restless hope,
saving fluid, donor's gift,
infusion to commence.
Cannula pierces the bag,
and horror suffuses the doctor's face;
to transgress in flowing blood's
indelible.
Or so it seems.
Of a sudden,
feeling freed,
we laugh.
'Forgive me?'
'Promise to remember me
when I'm gone?'
Before the nurse approaches
all's wiped clean.
©Janet Henderson 14.01.15
This poem was inspired by an incident which happened many years ago when I was nursing terminally ill patients. It stuck in my mind for many reasons partly to do with the desire we all have to know that we matter to those who care for us, we are more than our physical selves, and partly to do with the haunting connection between the spilling of blood and being remembered. On the last night of His life, Jesus used a cup of wine to symbolise His blood and said, 'Do this in remembrance of me.'
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