RAYMOND CARVER

"What The Doctor Said"

____________________

He said it doesn’t look good

he said it looks bad in fact real bad

he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before

I quit counting them

I said I’m glad I wouldn’t want to know

about any more being there than that

he said are you a religious man do you kneel down

in forest groves and let yourself ask for help

when you come to a waterfall

mist blowing against your face and arms

do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments

I said not yet but I intend to start today

he said I’m real sorry he said

I wish I had some other kind of news to give you

I said Amen and he said something else

I didn’t catch and not knowing what else to do

and not wanting him to have to repeat it

and me to have to fully digest it

I just looked at him

for a minute and he looked back it was the

I jumped up and shook hands with this man who’d just given me

something no one else on earth had ever given me

I may have even thanked him habit being so strong

RAYMOND CARVER

"Still Looking Out for Number One"

____________________

Now that you’ve gone away for five days,

I’ll smoke all the cigarettes I want,

where I want. Make biscuits and eat them

with jam and fat bacon. Loaf. Indulge

myself. Walk on the beach if I feel

like it. And I feel like it, alone and

thinking about when I was young. The people

then who loved me beyond reason.

And how I loved them above all others.

Except one. I’m saying I’ll do everything

I want here while you’re away!

But there’s one thing I won’t do.

I won’t sleep in our bed without you.

No. It doesn’t please me to do so.

I’ll sleep where I damn well feel like it —

where I sleep best when you’re away

and can’t hold you the way I do.

On the broken sofa in my study.