You Welcomed Me

You Welcomed Me

(“Though my sickness was a trouble for you, you did not hate me or make me leave. But you welcomed me as an angel from God, as if I were Jesus Christ himself!” Galatians 4:14)

I saw question marks hovering around your head like
gnat attacks that park in the sunny spots between forest shade.
You had an uncle whose head never quit hurting, a neighbor
who swallowed bourbon for the pain by prescription,
a doctor who healed you niece, a dozen tales of men
and females whose migraines counted against their earning potential.

Though straining at the leash like my dog who smells a cat
in the same place, under the same bush, every single walk past
the same house, and won’t give up until the cat scurries away,
claws her nose, or most of the time, simply has unoccupied the space
days before our arrival.

With more discretion than my dog, I’ve seen your eyes as the question marks
insist verbal assault and you hold back, silent and love, sad and hope
unable to offer a single method or medication to squeeze open my head
and let the pain escape like air from a punctured balloon.

Your sad eyes bright, say more than the mighty words of the unknowing
who keep showing pictures of the last person they know who was healed from
who knows what, (I know not when), and say, as I walk slowly away, “I thought
God answered prayer.”

You would limp for me, I know. You would transplant my pain, if not far
out to the ocean, into your own body and emotion without fear. You ignore
the question mark pests, refusing to pour out a keg of queries I’ve answered
over and over.

You know, though never asking, the simple cool touch of your fingers
along my forehead, a cloth cooled by evening breezes, soothes the clench,
moves the cracks in my head that feather down my neck and back, and
for moderation, 5 or maybe 10 minutes, I can breathe, smile, see today
worthwhile for a little longer.

I see the questions you have, so opposed to the massive droves of gnat-like
babble. The question on your lips is clearer in your eyes, softening with
half-tears; held back for my depression, expressed for my impression that
you would rather stay as long as I need, and go as soon as even one best-love
has been overwhelmed by the uninvited pain again.

But your question remains, and I rarely answer until I know there is no other place to go.
You ask: “Tell, me, how can I help. If there is anything (or nothing at all),
please, let me know.”