The Old Cowhand’s Hospital Interview
Yes, I will initial my name over and over
on every piece of paper and I know
how to use the snub-nosed pen to sign
computer screens. No,
I don’t recall the doc who slapped me
into life on my birth day, and no, I’ve never
gone back to Cheyenne. Yes, I was bucked off
a brahma bull in my rodeo youth—head injury,
joints never recovered, fell in with a bad crowd
at rehab, later became a drum-banging
rodeo clown, blew out my eardrums,
so I fail to hear the lonesome whistle
of your concern. I refuse to give you
my social security number. I’ve climbed
every mountain, forded every stream,
so it’s no wonder I smoke like fires
after an earthquake, and yes, I consume
far more than two drinks a day,
and yes, I fear doctors because the surgeon
who operated on my liver got drunk
on the fumes. I remember the exact
month and year I helped Roy Rogers
stuff Trigger for the cowboy museum.
I refuse to dress
in your white linen and I refuse
to become a ghost rider in the sky
over the hospital. I want only
to be saved, records and all,
computer files or paper, body
and soul. My cowhand days are over,
and I’ll never go back to Cheyenne, never.
Atrial Fib
It’s quite a trial, my heart’s
Inability to lie about its loss
Of metronomic regularity—
All those years, my steady subliminal
Thumps stayed under the mind’s
Radar, even during hours I just sat,
Gazing over a stilled pond, or
Quiet summer evenings
I thought I really could hear
My neighbor’s grass grow.
When I worried, the mind fibrillated,
Spiked and spiked higher, zigzag
Thoughts and up/down feelings
That crossed and re-crossed. Now
In my hospital room I anxiously
Study the monitor, that eerie
Corded extension of my
Heartbeat, and also, it seems,
Of my mind, and who wouldn’t want
The medicine, especially when it helps
My heart remember the reliable
Rhythm it was used to, that truth
So long beneath my notice.
Skip Renker has retired to Petoskey, Michigan after working for many years as an English Professor at Delta College. His poems have been published in numerous journals as well as three books. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee.