Undying - Michel Faber

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Bird, Not Very Well

      By the side of the road she stands:

      old bird, not very well.

      Will she cross? – Yes, perhaps,

      in a bit, when the tiredness

      passes.

      I walk as if on eggshell,

      to delay the flit of her wings.

      But closer by, step by step, then eye to eye,

      I see there will be no such thing.

      This bird is waiting

      patiently to die.

      I am in awe of seeing a bird like this,

      standing upright in extremis.

      We think of birds in two states only:

      dead already; death-defying.

      Feathered carnage, or still flying.

      Finding her, I know I’ve stumbled

      on a moment in a million:

      a moment even ornithologists

      may never witness:

      an old bird, on the point of dying.

      Humbled, I intrude on her distress,

      her mute, attentive helplessness.

      I sit with her a while,

      a hundred times her size.

      My shoe-heel comes to rest

      inches from her breathing breast.

      My shadow lassos her personal space:

      all that remains of her domain.

      Yesterday, the unbounded sky; today

      only a fringe of dirt

      for massive cars to pass.

      One loose feather, scarcely bigger than her eye,

      flaps, passive, as they rustle by.

      She keeps eerily still,

      on the very edge

      of no longer being a sparrow.

      On the brink

      of no longer thinking

      birdy thoughts.

      Lucky

      In late ’88, not knowing how lucky I was,

      I met a woman who would die of cancer.

      I looked into her eyes, and did not see

      the dark blood that would fill them when

      the platelets were all spent.

      All I saw was hazel irises, keen intelligence,

      a lick of mascara on the lashes she would lose.

      I thrilled to the laugh that pain would quell,

      admired the slender neck before it swelled,

      and, when she gave herself to me,

      I laid my cheek against a cleavage

      not yet scarred by venous catheters.

      Tenderly I stroked the hair

      which was, at that stage, still her own.

      I spread her legs, put weight upon her ribcage,

      without a worry this might break her bones.

      I’d gaze, enchanted, at her naked back, the locus

      for the biopsies to come.

      Hurrying to meet her in the street,

      I’d smile with simple pleasure just to glimpse

      my darling who would gladly swallow

      pesticide for her future drug regime.

      I ran the last few steps to hug her,

      squeezing her arms, laying on the pressure,

      innocent of the bruises

      this might inflict one day.

      Hand in hand we walked, and I was proud

      to have this destined cancer victim by my side.

      I kissed her mouth and tasted only

      sweet, untainted Yes.

      She was lucky too, back then in ’88.

      As long as she would live, she loved my body,

      ignorant of what it held, and what it holds

      in store for me. The skin she fondled

      took pity, withheld from her its vilest secrets,

      withholds them still (for now),

      maintains the smooth façade

      on which, on our first night, she shyly laid

      her palms, her lips, her breast, her brow.

      [indecipherable] kappa

      The best doctor in our area

      went into the woods one day

      and blew his head off.

      We were never told

      why he did it; his funeral

      was in a church, and the papers

      were discreet.

      A ginger-haired bear of a man,

      all Scottish brawn and whiskers,

      he liked you. He liked you a lot.

      I think he was a little in love with you,

      as so many men were.

      There was a twinkle in his eye

      when he’d bare your thigh

      for the pethidine shot

      in those halcyon days when migraine

      was your big disease.

      I wish his rendezvous with you

      had pleased him even more.

      I wish his ardour had been more profound.

      I wish he’d stuck around to be the one

      who diagnosed you.

      I somehow doubt he would have sent

      you home from the local clinic

      clutching a scrap of paper scrawled with

      [indecipherable] kappa,

      immunoglobin [spelling error],

      and a tip to go to Google and explore

      what ‘multiple myeloma’ meant.

      We followed that prescription

      to the letter, sick with terror.

      The words, as far as we could tell,

      meant death, in agony, and soon.

      Which just goes to show

      it matters who one’s doctor is

      on a given afternoon,

      and that the best doctor in our area

      should perhaps have been on better

      medication.

      Tests

      You tell your children

      you’re having some tests.

      They’re

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