Recovery

    by Ed Bennett

On Memorial Day

when I jig riggered

the pot rack over the sink,

proud that I found the studs

and drove the nails true;

my first healthy day

after the caesura of doctor’s

scrub clad smiles, lancets ready

to perfect me with dissection,

removal, a temporary limp

and the unexpected skill

you performed like daily prayer

when you exposed my wounds,

bathed and dressed them

kissed my forehead “To make you better”.

On Memorial Day

I knew you loved me beyond

the dry croak of my ailments,

gave the only gift that you sought:

a pot rack, hung true, over the sink.

© 2011 Ed Bennett

Ed Bennett is a Telecommunications Engineer living in Las Vegas and is a Staff Editor of Quill and Parchment.  Originally from New York City, his work has appeared in The Patterson Literary Review, The Externalist, Philadelphia Poets, Quill and Parchment, Autumn Skies Poetry, and Touch: The Journal of Healing.  The Lives You Touch Publications will publish his chapbook, A Transit of Venus, later this year.