Life is Good

Rudy Francisco

It has been awhile since

the weather has surprised

me, a hurricane 

in the middle of summer,

when I have always loved

the rain.

Alternate

In the rush to get to work this morning, I try to remember whether I tucked my bedsheets in and come up empty. In another bed, it is 7AM and I must just be rolling into you, the heavy blankets, sticky marshmallow on your skin. There is sunlight sneaking underneath the curtains when you ask about breakfast. I offer you coffee and takeout and kiss you on the cheek once, twice, thrice more than necessary to distract you from the fact that I have yet to learn how to cook. I like the Eiffel Tower of books on your bedside table, the brochure from our visit to the doctor folded into a bookmark in one of them. I like that I can hold onto the edges of your shirt so early in the day. I shift my fingers to your wrist and your pulse is a slow steady rhythm. I try to remember whether I tucked my bedsheets in this morning and come up empty.

They are hostile nations

i

In view of the fading animals
the proliferation of sewers and fears  
the sea clogging, the air
nearing extinction

we should be kind, we should
take warning, we should forgive each other

Instead we are opposite, we  
touch as though attacking,

the gifts we bring
even in good faith maybe  
warp in our hands to
implements, to manoeuvres


ii

Put down the target of me
you guard inside your binoculars,  
in turn I will surrender

this aerial photograph  
(your vulnerable
sections marked in red)  
I have found so useful

See, we are alone in
the dormant field, the snow
that cannot be eaten or captured


iii

Here there are no armies  
here there is no money

It is cold and getting colder,

We need each others’
breathing, warmth, surviving  
is the only war
we can afford, stay

walking with me, there is almost  
time / if we can only  
make it as far as

the (possibly) last summer

Margaret Atwood, 1976

non-fiction

A little boy came into the clinic yesterday, 5 years old and slight. This little boy, his mother said, had been getting red eye as far back as she could remember but he would always sleep well and quietly and so would she. On his fourth birthday and on the urging of her husband, she finally brought him to a doctor. She spent the money allotted for his cake on a tiny bottle of antibiotic they had nursed for the better part of a year.

Today, she hands us this bottle, still over a third full, and wonders aloud why her little boy has been crying out of his left eye for weeks. He still sleeps well, she said, and off to the side, looking up at his momma, he concurs. He finishes his homework and cleans up after dinner. She insists she instills a drop of antibiotic each time his eye turns red and checks, first thing in the morning, that his eye had turned bright again, white and shining, before slipping the bottle back onto her dresser. She does not understand why the antibiotic does not seem to be working this time.

We motion him towards the slit lamp, this monster of a microscope made of metal and glass, and he follows without a word. Every once in a while, we touch a drop of fluorescein onto his lower lid. He blinks (one, two, thrice), a little frown on his lips at the sting of the dye, but stays still regardless. We watch as a gush of water carves a river through the green. His infection had burrowed a hole through the crystal of his eye. He was crying aqueous instead of tears.

He sits on his mothers lap as we explain his prognosis to her. We talk of antibiotics and proper dosing and patching and giving the cornea time to heal and prepare her for the eventual need for transplant surgery. He listens attentively, head tilted to the side as if he understood as much as she.

I wonder often what it must take to raise a child and raise a child well, to raise this kind of boy who, at 5, already understands that discomfort and love can be an equal exchange. God knows, I forget, far too often for my own good. Mabuhay ka, Ray. Thank you for reminding me that the world is always bigger than I.