Knees, Please

It was far too soon for this night,

the one before the surgery

to mend my damaged knee.

It was nothing, really, to fear,

at least said my friends and doctor

alike, though friends had no need of his skill.

Rather than good luck, I’d have preferred good skill

as their best wish on that too-soon night,

and also good night, sleep tight to my doctor,

who’s traits magical needed to become surgical

in early morning’s light. In truth, I feared

the thirst and hunger of the fast more than the swollen knee.

I’d lived so long with this wounded knee,

still mine because of a corpsman’s skill,

decades ago, amidst battlefield fears,

in a screaming black night,

swept by chopper to surgery,

surrounded by fatigued nurses and doctors.

Over fifty years, so many doctors,

all amazed at the state of my knee,

few believing that field surgery

could be performed with such skill,

while rockets rained down in the din of night,

all of the medics containing their fear.

It’s tangible and real, the matter of fear,

mastered by the wills of both patient and doctor.

No point in allowing the sounds of the night

to betray the focus on arms, feet and knee.

What mattered was using all available skill

in dim-lit, earth-trembling surgery.

I knew it was only a first step, that surgery.

There’d be more cutting and sewing and pain yet to fear.

I had to rely on the nerve and the skill

of the nurses and corpsmen and doctors

now near, as they thought perhaps I’d lose the knee, the leg,

as I drifted at last into sleep’s unseen night.

I awoke with both legs after that night of surgery.

Feeling both knees took most of the fear.

Later, other doctors’ skills took the rest of it.