Feeling Squeezed at the Grocery Store I Conclude that the Propensity to Ignore Pain is Not Necessarily Virtuous, but Continue Shopping and Gather the Ingredients for Ham Fried Rice because That’s What I Cook When My Wife is Out-of-Town and I’m Not in the Mood for Italian, and Dammit I’m Not Ill, Merely a Little Inconvenienced, and Hey, in the 70’s I Played Football in Texas, and When the Going Gets Tough…
I answer work email in the checkout line. Drive home, take two aspirin.
Place perishables in refrigerator. Consider collapsing in bed. Call wife.
Let in dog. Drive to ER, park. Provide phone numbers. Inhale. Exhale.
Repeat. Accept fate and morphine. Ask for lights and sirens, imagine the
seas parting. On the table, consider fissures and cold air, windows and
hagfish. Calculate arm-length, distance and time. Expect one insertion,
receive another. Dissonance in perception, in reality. Turn head when
asked. Try reciting Kinnell’s “The Bear.” Try again, silently this time.
Give up. Attempt “Ozymandias.” Think of dark highways. Wonder about
the femoral, when and how they’ll remove my jeans. Shiver uncontrollably.
The events in this poem took place nine years ago. A lifetime ago.
O at the Edges 
This “narrative of very heavy-duty proportions… is indeed a problem for us to probosculate upon…” but mostly I’m immeasurably grateful to know and love you in THIS life, this version of the universe’s infinite (and infinitely improbable) possibility, that led me to you. Ti amo, Roberto! ❤️
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The heart attack was truly the beginning of a new life. It initiated this blog, and so much has happened since then because of it. But more importantly, how else would we have met?
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What timing … reading this a couple hours before going to the heart doc to debate need for sonogram and fancy (=expensive) new BP meds (BP fine w/o) …
Thanks for a timely level-set.
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I saw my cardiologist a couple of weeks ago. Everything seems to be fine. I hope your visit was fruitful for you.
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Yup – I’m off the hook for now.
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