Post Op

    by Ed Bennett

I am a man like most others:

able to join mortise to tenon,

unable to wed emotions to words

or find the tight metaphor

to express my joy, my relief

when you opened your eyes

still unfocused by the anesthesia.

I brought flowers as if

they could speak for me,

an interlocutor from heart to soul

yet a symbol of my inabilities,

monument to a tongue caught

between hospital decorum

and my need to shout.

Your tongue is thick,

an encumbrance, still

so we are equals in this

shared inarticulate moment

when I fluff your pillow,

hold your hand

in this somber setting

and we sing love songs

to each other

with our eyes.

© 2011 Ed Bennett

Ed Bennett is a Telecommunications Engineer living in Las Vegas and a Staff Editor of Quill and Parchment.  Originally from New York City, his work appeared in The Patterson Literary Review, The Externalist, Quill and Parchment, Touch: The Journal of Healing, and The Lavender Review.  In March of this year, The Lives You Touch Publications published his chapbook, A Transit of Venus.