Daybreak until nightfall,
she sat by her husband at the hospital
          while chemotherapy dripped
through the catheter into his heart.
          She drank coffee and read
magazines.
She paced while he worked
          on his poems.
  She rubbed his back
and read aloud. Overcome with dread,
          they wept and affirmed
that he would beat this, witlessly,
          over and over again.
When it snowed one morning.....
....
.. he gazed
          at the darkness blurred
with flakes. They pushed the IV pump
          which he called Igor
slowly past the nurses’ pods, as far
          as the outside door
so that he could smell......
          yes smell the snowy air.