The Kind Doctor

A stream of young doctors come to talk

to us while my mother’s diabetic husband

begs for Pepsi, parched and fidgety on the bed.

They are trying to get to the bottom of his weakness,

slurring, drooping right lip, which come and go.

Despite my whispered hallway insistence

to emergency room nurses about my mother’s mind,

one doctor is rude, repeating. Most are kind.

The kindest one, the only Black man in the room,

observed by a serious, clipped attending,

exclaims Good Lord with informal flair when

he takes a seat and drops his pen, fishes it from his shoes,

admits, We are only human, we doctors, awkward, too

to put her at ease. He listens patiently

to the way she answers his direct questions

with long, innocent narrations that soften the truth

about her husband’s diet, protect her pride, stop clock time

with her vanity, her humanity. He gently interjects

Yes, ma’am, so kindly, as she repeats declarations of love

and admiration for Al, Allen, such a good, kind, intelligent man,

who was a school principal, who called her at midnight

all those years ago, her sweetheart, and when she is done,

the kind doctor repeats his diagnosis three different times,

in three different ways with careful explanations,

as if each one were the first, to her surprised, Oh!

No doctor has ever taken the time to explain that before.

And when my mother, crowned queen of long-term memory,

tells him she has always had a special sense, she can sense

when people are good, and he is truly good, she can tell

by how he really listens, and she’s grateful for him,

he says he is grateful she has trusted him with her husband’s care.

She says again, Some people just have a sense about people,

and he says, I believe that, too, and have thought a lot about it,

and stands, takes her hand, says he will come back

to talk with her about this very thing. Soon. We are all moved.

Al is moved to intensive care. The kind doctor doesn’t return.

My mother doesn’t remember him, her whisperer.