More or Less Precisely

 

(Anika Sage Phillips)

More or Less Precisely

for caring health workers and my beloved granddaughter Anika

(“All of God’s promises have their yes in him. That is why we say Amen through him to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20)

I walked into the room and sat down in the maroon lounger
ready for my quarterly cocktail of headache juice.
Something in my brain broke 4,470 days ago
(more or less precisely)
and now I visit the infusion bar for another
in a long chain of failed remedies. The pain
in my head
runs in front of me most days,
digging a rut, a labyrinth
of loneliness…
most days.

I am the new one at this bar where most
are infused with healing poison
to kill the rebel cells that turned traitor
on the cancer patients’ bodies. They visit monthly,
sometimes weekly and call the barkeeps by name.

Me, I’m only here for a headache, and it has been 90 days
since I drank from the newest elixir claimed
to turn my brain around.

One of the angels set my table:
a bottle of water,
a package of trail mix,
blood pressure slightly high,
and a polished steel frame that will hold
the long pour that will keep me there a
half hour or more.
I have never had such attentive mixologists before.
Another angel sticks my arm with a pin
and leaves it there waiting for my cocktail to begin.
Then the third hangs my hope on the frame,
a premix in a plastic bag flowing from above me
into my veins.

I should add (for the reader some years from now)
we are living and breathing in a pandemic, and
I am not the only one isolated these days. The angels,
they all wear masks, as do their patrons, to stop the spread,
and get ahead of this virus that outsmarted most of us.

I could not see the angels smile; they could not see my crooked teeth,
but I watched their eyes sparkle and the third one had curls that
bounced slightly when she talked:

“How long?” she asked. It is what everyone asks. And I tell
her I am starting a baker’s dozen of years now. Her brow furrowed,
her breath suspended like a dream that lasts moments but
is filled with twists and plots and a-list faces you never remember.

“13 years?” she asked. It is what I wonder too. And I tell her
“yes”
while I recount my work history, my retirement, my fear of displacement,
and my desire to visit Ireland someday. And then I say

“But I did take a trip last year.”

II.

And recount my fortnight with the sunshine of my life,
my Anika, my beloved granddaughter, my bubbles, my
too soon growing up girl in the north country, to help
her mom and dad

Go to Asia.

We dropped the parents at the airport, Minneapolis, 15 above.
I borrowed my son’s coat and boots and thick socks and gloves.
We drove back home to plan our 14-day adventure.

We would eat sushi and pizza,
Papa would cook once or twice,
we would eat ice cream and noodles.
Ani would take me to see the sights
on long adventures in the basement with
flashlights, laundry baskets and Hamilton
on the playlist.
We got snowed in on the weekend, a Mid-March
blizzard caught us by surprise.

But, to the third angel I said:

My ten-year old Ani, my smart and sweet one,
took dance lessons downtown and I stayed while
she and her friends practiced in cohorts. There
were arms and legs becoming machines,
twirling hair and flowers made of magical things.

And then it was time
to show what they had rehearsed. Each
troupe in the studio performed for us; whirled
and turned, interpreted the score for us.
I sat in a chair, Ani sat on the floor with
a dozen dance mates.

But two, maybe three performances in she
looked back and up at me, noticed a chair next to me
and slid away from her friends to join Papa for
a while. Of course I smiled.

But then, one of those moments where time and the divine
meet in such warmth that the space between now and then
becomes so thin there is little difference;
in that moment she laid her head on my shoulder and
I don’t mind telling you,
my pain became amnesia. Oh, and she may not
have noticed,
but Papa cried tears that day,
and is tearing up now just telling you about it.

III.

While I was speaking, angels one and two
joined the third angel listening to my story.
I had finished my draught some time ago
and I wished they could make it a double.

I am not nearly so talkative most days,
but today was one of those yes days,
an amen day,
a day when the angels would not depart until

I finished telling my story.