America is not a place

This is a work in progress

Yuri Gagarin

My parents were Soviet spies
They were so good
that even Moscow didn't know about them.
They just exchanged sideways glances
and passed State secrets to each other.

My sister was the first person in Space.
In our backyard
at age six.
She had a rocketship
and had never even heard of Yuri Gagarin.

Hospital

I didn't want to see him in the hospital
So I didn't go
I didn't know him like that
So I didn't know him at all
Jesus died on the cross
Mine never did
A child will lead them,
but he was too old
to be that man
and too young
to be in the hospital
in Milton's paradise
(not that Milton, there was another.)
and we gave to Caesar and had none
Caveat emptor, here's to your health.

But that's not how it happened
I have an agenda, and want no part of
the story
as it happened
My perception is
as they say
colored
(and we are foreign agitators)
because I can afford nice things
but will not go into hospitals
And the truth was
is
he went in
the same way I first did
Not breathing

II

Ambulance
is never a welcome sight
They were only parked
That night
The drivers at home
and out for coffee
or doing what people do
There was no paramedic
To make Lazarus tell his story
or an allegory;
They say the modern world
has made magic
and miracles
obsolete.
But it won't until
our hearts
become plastic
malleable
and molded into sections
compartments to hold
our disbelief
Mine is still in the pavement
(It didn't die on the cross)
in front of the door
to the hospital.

III

He's not a doctor
He is a physician
I was once told

It seems a lost cause
to heal a physical condition
When emotion is an overused cliche
for suffering.

I have not felt that and will not pretend.
But I was there
on a Sunday
morning
after I would not go into the hospital
there can be no mourning if you believe
in life after death
and there can be no mourning
if you don't
So we cried when the others cried.
Imitation is its own reward.

When it rains
on a sad day
someone may say that
God
is crying.

I
for one
am disillusioned
that the world has not flooded again
if that is the case

and I will not suspend my disbelief
in the rain outside the hospital