Two-stepping to Chemo's Beat


Dying is living whittled to nothing.
On the pillow, my husband‘s head sags, and I think

of Jesus’s dead nod. His stomach is as white as David’s
marble, and sparse, black hair rings a feeding tube, J-tube,

two syllables seared into my naïve stupor
denying the extinction of our love.

The tumor flares, a fireball or supernova swallowed
by a black hole we are powerless to close.

His eyelids fall, sleep-heavy,
boxing gloves dumped in a ring,

and cancer has bleached his sun-ruddy face
and beard as motley as Jacob’s coat.

They’ll medevac him to Denver, insert a stent,
drip chemo slowly into his new chest port,

a dock where no voyager will set sail, where poison
will ooze, stealthy—a pirate, a gangster, a godsend.

Please, please Godthing, heal this pain that stoops him,
doubles him like a folding chair—

~

I hate the acceptance in his sweet green eyes
that says, Maybe I will die,

while he scribbles instructions
for when I should pull the plug,

his bull’s strength and stubbornness
amounting to little. No superhero Marine,

he’s all too human, gulps down pain
he pukes back up, and I hate

how he’s thinning to bone,
as if he, the chef, had filleted himself,

his once-barrel chest carved down
to a mess of clavicles and ribs,

reduced to nature’s whim, to the gamble,
rigged chance, the cards dealt to wild things,

who don’t get mercy—none—
if a God with mercy even exists.

The Closest We Could Touch Was Almost


The trees speak to the sickbed: burled
bark seared with scars, notched
like a height chart by a kitchen door.
No champagne roses, we took a leather-
soled trek, searched for ourselves in
each other. We fought over money,
sipped romance, off and on like a pricey
whiskey, snifter-smooth and sensual,
saved for holiday solstice.
What we harvested was fire, a burnish
common as brass, extraordinary
as a cymbal’s crash at the height of a symphony.
The closest we could touch was almost—
his secrets, my impatience, traits
that forced bone to bark, rough
awakenings to his deathbed, where
we became sure of our folly.
On the morning he slipped away,
I dreamed I heard tree roots screaming,
anticipating being torn for his grave,
where ants freckle roses, white
as his face drained by dying.
How we tried, how we failed.
How we tried, how we succeeded.
How we shouldered each other
like walking sticks steadying our wade
through time’s estuary, full of slick,
rutted rocks. How we never let the other
fall, drown in dangerous currents,
collapse in any place where only
beings with wings could survive.

Where Do the Dead Assemble?