If I should tumble
from the gurney, take it
as a sign. Leave me
in a heap. Let doctors step
around me with care, aides and nurses
provide a wide berth. Delay
the ether, the gas, the injection—
whatever’s waiting to ease me
toward the knife. Give me,
for a decent interval,
the floor, no matter
how hard or dirty,
the troubled hum
of tubular fluorescence,
the scratch and rustle
of white starched clothing,
the ordinary, irregular
beat of rubber-soled shoes.

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F.W. "Skip" Renker's poems have appeared in many small press and online magazines (most recently, Triplopia, Poetry Superhighway, and Temenos), as well as several anthologies. He's a Pushcart Prize nominee who has published two chapbooks, Birds of Passage (Delta Press), and Sifting the Visible (Mayapple Press). He teaches English and meditation classes at Delta College in Michigan's Saginaw Valley.
E-mail: fwrenker at delta dot edu
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kaleidowhirl  |  spring 2007