The nurses called him Doctor Wicked,

not that he was except for his name

which was Wickman or Wicks or

something like that. He was the kind of doctor

who didn’t settle down, worked here, worked

there, in Oregon, North Carolina, all over the place

and he had his opinions. He would tell you, for example,

that “In this great and glorious United States of America

we are obliged by law to keep you alive long past

the point when I personally would want to be dead.”

“Yeah,” I said to the nurse, “Where is this fucking

guy?” “He’s talking to the pulmonologist. She wanted

to see him.” I liked this nurse. She had red hair and a tattoo

running all down her arm. As she leaned over the bed, I

recognized a quote from Dylan Thomas. It wasn’t the “rage rage

rage against the dying of the light” that a lot of people know.

It wasn’t about death at all. It was about this time of year. Across

the parking lot I could see the sky of Spring rains, the greening,

just a little bit, of the trees.