the man of the house

It was an elective procedure,

not necessary, but likely good,

clean and simple, in and out.

Better be, since he’s the man of the house, he said,

and there are so many things he needs to do at home.

Of course, he’d go home in a few days, they said,

back to his favorite chair by the table marked by that one mug

from which he and only he may sip coffee

while he waits for the sun to rise each morning,

back to the list of things she needs him to do, 

that wife whose presence he needs to sleep soundly

just as she needs his snoring to sleep herself

because it’s been there ever since he was barely old enough

to shave that beard that always needs a trim,

back to the tile he needs to replace,

the yard that never stops needing mowed,

the cell phone that always needs charged

because that daughter they made, 

she started calling for him as soon as she could talk

and she hasn't stopped yet,

but he doesn't mind because it's a good thing,

like most of the things they've made,

him and that wife that took a chance on him 

way back when he just pretended to shave. 

He’ll be in the ICU at least a week longer.

Can’t say for sure, but at least.

He’s a sick patient; he needs so many treatments.

And then – if then – he’ll need rehab, they say.

Home for them both is so far away,
dancing in delirious visions of the hard recliner chair in the waiting room

that she can tolerate only because she so badly needs to sleep,

and blown more distant with each harsh mechanical sigh

of the ventilator he needs to breathe

through the new hole in his neck where the trach ties

constantly wick up bloody ooze and need to be changed,

and hanging in the air faint and sweet and stale,

like the scent of the cookies she left on cooling racks weeks ago

that now need to be thrown out, whenever she gets back,

like the desperate lingering presence of his daughter

who haunts, if any living person can, 

leaving a clinging presence over his bed

even after her mother sends her home to [try to] sleep. 

She will stay here till her husband leaves.

For her, that's the old promise. 

She will love no matter what it costs, she says,

no matter what he needs to pull through.

Her heart falls to the worn carpet

each time a scrub-wearing messenger comes,

but she picks it back up and dusts off the fear

cause he needs it to shine, he needs it to hope,

he needs to be sure that no long operations,

no words and no scalpels, no cruel complications

can shatter this gamble made out of their lives,

that the name of “we” would grow truer than “I,”

that they'd gradually like leaning better than standing,

that no matter what comes, it’s better together,

that they'd be the difference between a house and a home;

he needs to still hope that, and she needs him to.

She doesn’t need him well, or whole or nicely-patched

or even able to place tile by himself, she says – no,

she just needs him back

among all the familiar needs he needs to be him.

Turns out they won their gamble,

and so now she needs him home.