Surviving Chicago

From the archives: 1991

Only once

The daemonic headache took me
in the middle of the parking lot
of the suburban Chicago eatery.

Who was screaming in the van with me?

I heard the screams but did not know
they were flying from my mouth.
Seeing my children looking at me
so young, scared, so confused.

How did the cops know to come?

The sirens escorted us to the nearest
hospital, where they would offer no
relief for pain until all tests were done.
You left me in the ER, taking with you
your brother and his family, my children, and a book you had bought, titled

“You Cannot Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought”.

After three days alone in an unknown city,
being pricked and prodded for a malady not showing
in any tests that i would allow, but not the one that might
leave me with a stroke. I was too young to die.
Sounding impatient and inconvenienced as my
husband and a doctor your help was to offer this advice:

“I’m at work, alone with visitors. You have to decide”.

Finally alone, having put away the dinner dishes
my first night home, having closed the doors on
little sleeping bodies in their beds, having no
expectation of comfort but only this you said
“Stop acting crazy or I will have you committed
and you will never see these children again”.
You very words. I stayed for twenty more years.

I was not yet thirty eight.