Ed Northen

TIME WARP

Driving
Up the narrow
Private road

Our emergency vehicle
Negotiates
The curved

Tree covered lane
Into an opening
Where a bungalow

Is nestled among
Mature sycamores
And eucalyptus

A 1920's
Beach Cottage
Time has missed
Almost

The landscape
Is unkempt
Ivy grows

Up
And around
The chimney
And entire home

Creating
The appearance of
Disheveled hair

Paint once vibrant
Peels or is gone
From the clapper shutters

We approach
The front
A screen door

Hangs
Cockeyed
Its screen missing

The main door
Open
To catch

The evening air
As it returns down canyon
To the ocean

Where it will
Rest
Then ascend

Return
With the unfailing
Sunrise

We enter
The dim lit room
Which matches

The macular degeneration
In the eyes
Of a thin
Drawn women

"He's over here"
She says
He just won't do anything

We turn
Look upon
A tall rail of a man

Laying on
A sheet covered
Sofa

He is wearing
A stained
White tank top

Light brown
Cotton pants
Which are peppered
With holes

From the rats
Chewing on them
His sweat sweet

He is aphasic
The left side
Of his once strong body
Limp

How long
Has he been
On the couch
We ask

"Almost a week"
She reply's

And unable to speak?
"Only today"

Her anxiety
Is tenuous
Denial has passed

The rats return
We chase them off
Don't hurt them she says

They scatter
Probably to feast
Upon the uneaten food

Which remains
On the piles
Of unwashed dishes
And takeout containers

We evaluate
Give oxygen
Start an intravenous line
Check his blood sugar

But we know
It is a CVA
A stroke

He has to go to
The hospital
We tell her
We will take him

And you
With us
Putting them both
In the ambulance

The sun
Dependably sets
Over the Pacific

We close
The cottage door

Ed Northen is a retired Fire Captain/Paramedic who worked in the field for 34 years. He lives in Hailey, Idaho, where he pursues his passions of environmental stewardship, hiking, backpacking and amateur photography. He is currently working as a fly fishing guide. Northen has been writing poetry for eighteen years, has been published in Ariel, Chimera, and Poetry Works and reads at local poetry gatherings. His poem poem "A River's Gift" recently won first place for ecological poetry in a recent contest.