Lyle Clears My Throat

Fair warning: I gotta roll my mother
every half hour or so to curb bedsores,
but I wanna hear this story. Just keep
it down cause she’s asleep and I need
the door cracked to hear her heart.
Well, not her heart. The monitor is what
I listen to. It’s been a year this June.
I come upstairs and found her on the floor,
drove her to local before they coptered us
to the U. Let me roll her quick and you
can start your story, which I’m dying
to hear. Where we’re at now, she can’t lift
her own arm, but if you lift it to start with
she can ease it back down real slow,
controlling the speed and choosing
where it lands, you know? They got her
on a food tube and all that, machines
tracking her heart and lungs, the works.
She’s basically comatose, but she can shake
her head for no and you’d be surprised
how much power that gives you.
They had her hooked up to this thing––
I don’t know what you call it––a shock
treatment kind of thing they hoped
would give her back her speech. But when
they explained all this she shook her head.
Doc said shake once for yes and four for no.