I met the limit of empathy

long after one bleary day,

when light opaquely let itself in

the ICU’s ten inch-

wide window and from which

one can only see a brick wall.

The bays were rounded in

a half-ring. Pain

cut back, for now, with

stomach injections, respirators,

and Ativan. “No one came to see me,”

he said, wet and blinking.

That year his psychiatrist came around

once every month and a half—

a fellowship at Harvard, then at McLean.

The hospitalists were many though:

after every admission,

they were different every day.

I met the limit of empathy in the limit

of language to talk about comorbidities,

bound up in an other’s drinking:

to agonal breathing,

to unconsciousness,

and debility.

Do you remember us?

We’ve been to this unit thirteen times

since September. We called the police.

Clinically, each time

you want a verbal affirmation—

“Do you feel you want to die?”

I met the limit of empathy

in the in-ability to gauge

the interpretive threshold

of suicidality,

in slow,

mute death.