What the Doctor Said
He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I'm real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong
.......................
It sounds cliche, the tortured/brilliant, alcoholic, dying young-ness
of Raymond Carver, but he's not a cliche.
Maybe because I tend to be verbose and can't really say anything
succinctly and without layering language on top of itself,
I have been in complete and total throbbing love with his spare,
beautiful style since I was 15 and Uncle George gave me
a copy of Cathedral.
His characters talk and think and act like the men who raised me.
Dirty realism. Click
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