A Little More Gauze
(Silly Stuff)
Of course, nothing compares with the pleasures of writing when it is going well: light verse skating ephemeral arabesques onto solid white, or the ever-stirring subterranean pool of more serious poems in flow. But some days are definitely not a pleasure. After six hours wrestling to get out a single stanza, it’s understandable to slide into self-pity and see ourselves as sufferers carving our own flesh. Dark fantasies take over...The melodrama unfolds...
“I don’t want to write!” hollers the poet writhing and kicking, as she drags herself by the hair down a narrowing hall. Strapped to the cold table, she stares into a high curved mirror and watches her shaking psyche split into three selves. Rigid on the rustling sheet, she is the patient, but also the surgeon, pen-knife in hand, and the stiff, masked nurse on alert to dispose of oozing snippets in the waiting pail. Wide awake, she trembles: the anaesthetist has left on vacation.
“Stay still, please,” the stony-faced surgeon orders, and inscribes a shallow exploratory cut.
That, the patient can take, grinding her fists into the table.
“Aha!” The surgeon slices deeper, and a few words bubble from the incision: “Too soon, like winter, love dismays...”
“More pressure, Nurse!”
The wound splits wider. The surgeon’s penknife probes a throbbing strip of tissue. “Looks like a strangulated pentameter.”
The nurse bends closer. “A common iambic, Doctor?”
“Forceps!” he snaps, and tugs.
“Ohhh,” moans the patient as words flood: “...I cannot wait at windowpanes and watch / for years that slipped away like darting fishes…”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” the surgeon snorts.
“But, Doctor,” the nurse points, ‘darting fishes’? That isn’t metrically—”
“Focus, please! Sponge!”
“...the harbours of my emptied love / churn their waters black as touch…”
“It’s coming now.” The surgeon smiles, easing back the forceps. “...the lighthouse, high white stone / within my heart...”
“Doctor!—‘within my heart’? That’s risking cliché!”
“Steady, Nurse. We’ve almost got it.”
“Doctor, even ‘the moon’s cascading fall?’ That’s suspiciously redundant.”
The surgeon ignores her. His forceps tug again.
“...into my...into my...into...” The rhythm falters.
“Doctor, we’re losing her!”
“Oxygen mask! Stat!” He leans over the patient. “Deep breaths now! Canada Council / GG Awards / lengthy reviews / generous grants / devoted fans /” With each inhalation, the patient’s colour brightens.
The surgeon gives a final tug. “Here it comes! ‘...into my...into my…old, unmothered hands.’”
“Whew!” He mops his forehead. “We got the whole stanza. Catgut ready! Prepare to close.”
As each stitch tightens into place, the patient moans, “Am I still alive?”
“We’re done now,” the surgeon soothes. “Get some rest.”
The nurse peels off her sterile gloves. “Revision Number 2 on Friday, Doctor?”
“Please! No!” The patient bursts her straps from the table. “I can’t go through this torture again!”
The nurse turns away. She hears the surgeon mutter, “Ingrate. What’s a little pain to get a new book out next year?”
Book? The poet’s eyes gleam. Readings, autograph parties, her mother bragging to the neighbours...“Well, maybe,” she concedes, “I could endure a bit more,” and slips gently to her feet. The high curved light dims, and the multiple selves of patient, surgeon, and nurse melt back into one dishevelled body.
After all, nothing compares with the pleasures of writing when it is going well.