Consequence

The tragedy of it is that it did not have to happen,
that it needed not be fatal--no, she could have had
many more years...

Alas, tragedy did happen, as that unexpected knocking
was a wheeze of terror in the breath of early morning.
Startled from my sleep, I groped for a measure
of comprehension and dashed to the door.
My elderly neighbor appeared,
breathless and pale, holding onto a ledge of panic
with weak fingernails, fearing for his wife.
Then, there was a snap-like sequence
ending in a plea for help, and then a
rapid return unto his stricken love.

I stood on the icy porch
and listened as the oncoming siren
slashed the predawn quiet like the plaintive
wail of a mass extinction.  In the glare of lights
that made me squint, I waved an arm overhead
and, directly, paramedics hurried down stairs
through the apartment door.  A mustache 
of perspiration quivered above Tom’s lip;
he searched for keys, stirring like a question
mark in blue slippers and half-buttoned flannel.

She ignored her health for over thirty years;
no doctor looked into her eyes.
Perhaps it was the throw rug of pride
under which she swept improvidence
and opted, instead, for indifference,
for such cavalier disregard--I do not know. 
But diamond will not sparkle enshrouded in a tomb.
Another species, a gray bewildered cat, remained
beneath a kitchen table, motionless.  Early
on a Saturday, fine crystal fell to jagged
rock, and I looked down to witness
the consequence of neglect.

35 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
2-23-15