“Words”
for Dr. Jose’ Amortegui
They might have been the first words
my parents taught me: say thank you
when someone gives you something
and after a while they didn’t even
prompt me, “Now, what do you say?”
because I’d say the magic words
on my own. I‘d say thank you to the police
officer who’d cross me for school
and thank you to the captain
at the fire house who’d let me sit up
in the truck and ring the brass bell.
I have said thank you all over my life,
for big things, little things and all
the in between things. Now, at age 70,
I say thank you to the surgeon who
bypassed five clogged veins to my heart
and, with his master hands, steered
clear ones into their place. I say
thank you with a prayer for the man
who stopped my heart so he could
start it pumping again with clean streams
of blood giving me more time to live,
adding more words to the story of my life.
Edwin Romond