On the then-below-zero day, it was on, <br />near the patients' chair, the old heater <br />kept by the analyst's couch, at the end, <br />like the infant's headstone that was added near the foot <br />of my father's grave. And it was hot, with the almost <br />laughing satire of a fire's heat, <br />the little coils like hairs in Hell. <br />And it was making a group of sick noises- <br />I wanted the doctor to turn it off <br />but I couldn't seem to ask, so I just <br />stared, but it did not budge. The doctor <br />turned his heavy, soft palm <br />outward, toward me, inviting me to speak, I <br />said, "If you're cold-are you cold? But if it's on <br />for me..." He held his palm out toward me, <br />I tried to ask, but I only muttered, <br />but he said, "Of course," as if I had asked, <br />and he stood up and approached the heater, and then <br />stood on one foot, and threw himself <br />toward the wall with one hand, and with the other hand <br />reached down, behind the couch, to pull <br />the plug out. I looked away, <br />I had not known he would have to bend <br />like that. And I was so moved, that he <br />would act undignified, to help me, <br />that I cried, not trying to stop, but as if <br />the moans made sentences which bore <br />some human message. If he would cast himself toward the <br />outlet for me, as if bending with me in my old <br />shame and horror, then I would rest <br />on his art-and the heater purred, like a creature <br />or the familiar of a creature, or the child of a familiar, <br />the father of a child, the spirit of a father, <br />the healing of a spirit, the vision of healing, <br />the heat of vision, the power of heat, <br />the pleasure of power.<br /><br />Sharon Olds<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-space-heater/
