Patrick Donnelly
The Ninth Day of Av
Pneumocystis pneumonia, his second case in the early 90s.
His bones soaking the sheets, his coughing which brought
up nothing. But when he’d close his eyes in the hospital bed
particular faces of people he’d never met in his inner eye
did rise up. Specific and aggressive and lacking bodies,
they wanted his, Beth Israel just one station of struggle
in those days. He barred their way with Jesus’ name,
though the Catholic chaplain had refused him Jesus
in the form of bread, because he would not confess first.
“Where there is serious sin…” the priest said, trailing off.
Instead, the Jewish chaplain visited on Tisha B’Av,
and they spoke of the destruction of the Temple. Every night
he forbid the faces at the threshold, saying you cannot
come in. There is no extra room. I am still here in this body.
Patrick Donnelly is the author of The Charge (Ausable Press, 2003, which in 2009 became part of Copper Canyon Press), Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012), Jesus Said (a chapbook from Orison Books, 2017), and Little-Known Operas (forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2019). His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others journals and anthologies. Donnelly is the director of The Frost Place Poetry Seminar. Learn more at patrickdonnellypoetry.com.
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