Roy Jacobstein

                       -Ann Arbor V.A. Hospital

Black matter, black hole, blacker 
than charcoal, tar, crow in winter,  
blackest thing I'd ever seen, 
thirty years later the blackest thing
I've ever seen, that thin black leg
below the still-white thigh angling 
from the veteran's hospital gown 
the way person, place and time 
long ago angled away from his grip. 
And all they wanted, his family 
up from Kentucky to see him 
through the A-K amputation 
meant to halt the gangrene's advance,
was for us to give him (under
their breath they asked, hushed plea 
at the end of the medical history 
taken from those who could give it, 
at the end of his story of service  
at Leyte, Guam, Guadalcanal, return 
to the slag pits, migration to the tool-
and-die shops of Ypsilanti, wife 
and three kids, then the gradual total 
surrender of any and all) "a little extra."
But I was just the first-year student, 
my white coat short, deferment long, 
and I didn't know enough to say yes. 


Copyright © Roy Jacobstein All rights reserved

Ploughshares, 2008