An Abstract Conversation

As I waited on my flight in an airport restaurant,
From a corner booth, a harsh cough growled
like the screech of tires braking on damp pavement.
I recognized it from the hospital.
It was the sound of Illness.
I sat down across from Illness, and he looked at me
with contempt as sweat dripped from his fevered brow;
He coughed again.
He sat back roughly in his seat, like a tiger resting between kills.
I told Illness of a patient, a 4-year-old girl
with hair that smelled of lilacs, the fragrance flowing
over her shoulders like a river running.
The girl died because Illness had killed her.
I thrust my finger in his face and told him
in great triumph that we revived her, and he
is a liar and a thief.
Angry now, I asked him if he ever loved someone
who died unfairly. Illness put a hand over his face
and began to sob great pus-filled tears.
He looked at me through sunken yellow eyes, saying,
yes . . . yes, he did,
He had dropped in despair to pray but
his ears only heard that illness is a condition of life,
His love undaunted, he had raised his hands and begged God give him
the illness so his young daughter could live.
As he left, Illness told me he was happy again,
knowing his little girl had lived.
Through all the odors of his disease, he said
he could smell the lilacs again.