The first thing she requests post-surgery,
awake but drifting in the morphine glow,
is that my sister turn on the TV
so that the two can watch her favorite show.
Weak but alive, unsure if she has cancer,
my mother turns to questions she can answer.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “I wrote this poem while I was over a thousand miles away from the scene it describes, based on my sister’s phone account of what happened. The irony of the show’s title under the circumstances was the first stimulus for the poem, but also I almost laughed when I thought of how characteristic my mother’s action was. Given that she was in her eighties when she had major surgery, my mother’s jeopardy was very real, and I wrote the poem while we still didn’t know whether she had cancer. She did not. There is another irony, in that the game show Jeopardy! provides answers for which the contestants have to supply the appropriate questions. Yet, in context, those questions are answers.
The hardest challenge when writing about an emotional situation is to focus on the facts and let the emotions emerge by suggestion. A hint of humor acts as a counterweight to unspoken anxieties. The poem was first published in Measure and later appeared in my second poetry book, The Whetstone Misses the Knife.”

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

Photo: “Filming Jeopardy!” by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.