Doris Lynch

Being There

I was dying, the surgeons said so. Two of them, one male, one female. The man had a low voice with a delightful Scottish accent, and the woman sounded clinical but kind. I didn’t have to ask questions or listen to them speak carefully chosen, pollyannaish words. At least I wouldn’t have to struggle with an amputated leg and pebbles floating inside my eyes. The bike accident had changed everything. I was in that place many—no, all of us eventually enter, that cathedral of hushed air, the schoolroom without books, an abandoned theater with torn seats and an empty stage. The world’s chatter had nearly halted: only carts of instruments clanged, and a ridiculous guffaw echoed from the surgery corridor. Other sounds hushed forever: lawnmowers, buses, annoying phone music. Good sounds, too, the swish-swish of waves, mourning doves cooing, a kitten’s gentle mew.

In some ways, it felt comforting. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no problems to solve. Fate had struck. Voices arrive from the other side of a divide: my family gathering. My sisters’ and mother’s shrieks demand that I stay. I want to calm them. Tell them it’s OK. The pain is distant like an airplane spinning contrails high above. Leaving feels like dipping oneself into a late-summer sea, its waves lapping my ankles, brushing my knees. For once, I feel safe and protected. For once, all is now.

sandpiper prints fill. . .
the frenzy and frolic
of storm waves

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About the Author

Doris Lynch’s collections include Swimming to Alaska (Bottom Dog Press) and Meteor Hound, both published in 2023. She has won fellowships from the Alaska Council on the Arts, Indiana Arts Council, and the Chester H. Jones Foundation, and awards from the Poetry Society of America, Genjuan International Haibun Contest, and the Haiku Society of America Haibun Contest.

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