TWO NURSES, A TIGHT CLOSET, AND ME

positioned between them
the heat from their white purity
invading my pubescent hospital pajamas
flushing my cheeks
igniting my regions
as I Bobby Darined my way
through Mack the Knife.
1959 was the year,
diabetes the disease,
Brooklyn the place,
an all male hospital ward my home
of dreams, rock 'n roll,
& trouble
percolating like a virus gone wild
in a rapidly aging eleven year old body
finger snappin, pretending
I was both the singer
& the song.

After the fear
loosed its grip
& needles & shots & tubes
snaking from mouths & assholes & veins
to bottles hidden beneath beds
or crucified on poles
& strange & bearded men
lost their ghostliness,
my body regained its hum
and my little Panasonic its life.
She stood propped against the door,
in all her beauty, her starched white uniform
& pronged pointed hat atop her cornsilk hair
couldn't conceal a body wanting to explode
from its confinement, watching me
mouthing lyrics, snapping fingers,
and gyrating against the pillows
allowing Bobby's hipness to take me
to where I wasn't.
I couldn't have known
that everything we are
or was going to be
was held in a tune.

I caught her
watching & smiling
a smile that wasn't--
a smile meant for a lover,
a smile that wasn't cute
but coquettish; a smile
on a different highway
with a different destination.
She held her slim index finger
up in the air...soon she was back
with another nurse. Slowly
they came to my bedside
& she reached for my hand
& led me, on trembly legs
to a supply closet across the hall
where they pressed against me:
"Sing it again, baby," she coaxed me,
"just like before."
I began to stammer.
"It's OK, baby, sing it again,
just like before."
And just like that
I snapped my fingers, found the beat,
& the shark came out
to play.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

TEACHING OTHERS

how to live
with my disease
is what I'll do
come end of April.
It simply landed
in my lap
like a cat
and I'd be a fool
not to let it
nestle there.
I'll do it
downtown
& uptown,
Monday
to Friday
with old fucks
& young
newly diagnosed
& scared
shitless.

I'll be paid
handsomely.
I don't
deserve
it, but
who does?
I'll be working
with nurses
& interns
& residents
& reps
and hope
as I do
always
that the pretty ones
will turn kindly
to a phrase
or a well put together
sentence.
I'll be on the lookout
for storage rooms
of intimacy
and an unguarded vial
of morphine
or dilaudid.
I'll tease myself
with love
that might supply
my book
with a different
ending.
Here's hoping
that it does
before I do.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015