Among the many roads we have to travel in this life,
Nothing prepares us for this:
The one we will one day travel every Sunday afternoon –
Or every Saturday afternoon,
Or even every evening –
To visit in hospital someone we love,
Or perhaps someone we hate,
Or perhaps someone we both love and hate,
Who may be recovering,
Or who may be dying;
The road which, unfamiliar at the outset,
Arbitrary and discomfiting and hard to remember,
Quickly takes shape in our hearts,
Becoming as unmistakable
And as immutable
As a question-mark eternally searching
For its own full stop.
By Jonathan Steffen
First published in Acumen Literary Magazine, September 2014
Photo: © Jo Wilson
