All You Are to a Hospital is a Guest
by Sam Herschel Wein
In Memory, In Love
The first time Ian was in the hospital, I went to visit, in the first week.
The week before, Ian was throwing up at work while I watched,
gentle rub of their back. The week after my visit, Ian couldn’t speak, or move,
or breathe without a tube—doctors thought the end, thought soon
to be dead. I wasn’t allowed to see them, hug them, doctors said too sick,
too little energy for friends. When your friends are dying, all you are
to a hospital is a guest, an overly large scarf, a scribbled name
on a turquoise pass. I think the pass had a flower, just one, in the corner.
Maybe a bee, with a smile. But that first visit—Ian in the hospital
and I’m sitting on their bed, one leg stooped to the side,
knee resting beside their chest. Ian, sick under blankets, still managing
to smile, to be strong for the rest of us, spoke softly, said, Sam,
what are you doing here, right now? Not this room, but here, this place
of where you are? Working in social services, how you collapse
like a cap, flattened, depleted of everything. And your personal relationships,
tending to people who don’t care for you, don’t look for your worries
the way a lover should, a friend should. You don’t belong at this job.
Supporting homeless people is my dream. Because I love it.
I know you care, Sam. But you are a writer, a poet. That is
your dream. Leave this place, this hospital bed, your bed at home.
Buzz and tinker and step out of so many unwashed buildings, places
where you are too poisoned to bloom. Soar, Ian said. Dropped my hand.
Sam Herschel Wein (he/they) is a Chicago-based poet who specializes in perpetual frolicking. Their second chapbook, GESUNDHEIT!, a collaboration with Chen Chen, was part of the 2019-2020 Glass Poetry Press Series. He co-founded and edits Underblong. Recent work can be found in perhappened mag, The Adroit Journal, and Sundog Lit, among others.