Transfusions (by Patricia Fiske)

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This poem is copyright


“I feel just like a young girl again,”
My dying mother whispered,
“Doctor, do something!” I say.
Result, a futile blood transfusion.
Her first lucidity for days.
No painkilling drugs talking now,
But someone’s youthful blood,
Course through a wasted body,
Giving mother transient hope.
“I feel just like a young girl again”.

And for a while, she believed me
When I said she was not dying.
But she was and I was lying.
She was dying.
That flush of youth, so brief,
Left like a thief, with hope captive.

Now, at seventy-eight, her age then,
Transfused by hope and good health.
I often feel like a young girl again,

But often transfusion goes, so soon,
Like a thief, with hope its captive.
Old preconceptions intrude,
Like “Act your age,”
And I try for a while

Until a rainbow,
A starry night,
Or a tender touch
Pulse through my being
And I feel, "just like a young girl again".

   -(Patricia Fiske)---

Re-printed from Patricia’s chapbook “Late Bloomer”

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