Pneumonia

left lung.

Small Talk

Sitting around the table of our
friends last year, a disparate collection of
coworkers, neighbors, sister, and the
recently widowed
all a little drunk and some
a little high
came the question meant to
smooth a little glue and adhere us
more together:

so what was the time you got your heart most broken?

And suddenly for me
all present
even me
became
not themselves but just the page their
long-storied lives were
opened to, now, at this
evening moment.

First then, the easy incantations of the
sixth grade loves:
Mike DelPrete
blond Tim Buckley and
so funny Danny Leonard who finally
dumped me with a
torn page from his Trapper Keeper and a
pink crayon:
you're a wicked awesome girl, but -

The time I accidentally vacuumed my
hamster my only murder it truly
haunted me for
years

Then, of course, not getting
into Brown
twice
(I just really believed that was my
place and those were my
people though it now turns
out that I
hate
Providence)

Later, all the last looks back leaving
the ER at my fallen-again mother so sad lost and
bewildered
here again? here again?
as they took her sharps and soothed her back to
Medical Six
then home to meet my brother off the
bus who couldn't speak of it and
still doesn't

The time I missed all the signs and saw them all
in hindsight
when my former roommate took a
shotgun to his head

And too much to really say
of course
the time he loved me
and the time he didn't

I gave the edited
potluck-ready answer but, later, thought
This is why they
sell those decks of conversation-starter cards because
these stray questions
sometimes complete a
literature review that you
never meant to do and that do not
always end
by dessert.

On Being Your Mother

In August this year
on a hot afternoon I was driving small you
along route 22, to the organic farmstand, nothing but the
Berkshires and steep cowfields to either
side of us. We were wanting a
tomato and something for
the grill and I
brought you with me for the dipping country drive
just the girls
windows down, KZE on, lazy and free. You waved your tiny hands and
sang some tune, I daydreamed, until three abrupt blasts:
emergency broadcast system, not a test, a
storm cell littering
tornadoes all down the valley and
sure enough
the sky went weirdly dark and the green
fluoresced just as
we pulled in. A hundred yards, up the hill, the
ridge and the view
all down the valley. Back behind us
basements, and generally more
sensible and safe options.

Where, in the book I have from your first day regularly
consulted, does it advise how to make these
impossible choices
to keep you alive or
let you live?

And for the first time, with the warning sirens beginning to
wail, and the farm staff panicked and
waving us in, I deferred the
decision to two-year-old-you:
home safe
or see it?
See it, your eyes instantly said, finger pointing firmly
up to the ridge and it was all
the instruction I needed my
fingers flew over your straps and buckles and I
gathered you all up in my arms, running, your arm around my neck
so tight
all your might
singing in my ear oh I loved you so and we
ran as the
first fat raindrops fell through the
corn the sunflowers the sudden smells released and as we reached
the top of the ridge
oh glory
glory be
all before us an eight-lane skyway of
funneling clouds, lightning, cracking thunder loud
enough to vibrate our ribs a
spreading dark and the
fear of God
you screamed I
screamed your cheek to mine oh
the joy of it and then
down again in the soaking wind to the
car and of course then
home safe
but plastered wet and with
no good explanation for your dad and your brother what
happened what happened was for the first time
you chose
and we saw it and
it was also for the first time and
not the last so
totally
totally
worth it.

Thinking of You

Dear Friends, let me send you a loveygram as I
mash these potatoes and likely look oh so busy tending the
turkey dinner on today, Thanksgiving Day, while the
husband goes for a run and the kids
feed the seamonkeys and the
frost begins to steam off of the brown oak leaves
at the warm-enough touch of the
first morning light.

You are all going to die.

You, my best friends, my Five, are not going to make it. Its just a
matter of when.

Later today there will be a moment of grace, and I'll join
hands around a table, as you will
probably too, and maybe we'll
float some fine
grace out to each other. Be thankful for each other. See
each other's faces in our minds, with a
warmish feel. So you know, this is what
I'll really mean.

I hope I get to be there when you die.

For you, One. For you, you'll want it to be just like your
wedding day. All the friends from
all the phases, family too, but the
friends first. I'll gather them to you. I'll set out
food and beverage and play good music and
we'll mingle around you. When death gets close, I'll curl up
with you and
whisper stories (I was always your
storyteller) and
talk you on a walk back through
all the good times. When its closer, I'll play your morphine just
right, and you'll be in your mind on your couch,
home,
endorphins going from a perfect day, your
little dog, long dead now, nestled
again between your knees, wife so bright and happy, a
taste of warm pumpkin pie and tea in your mouth. And
at your last
I'll talk you to the creek, kiss your cheek, and float you away.

Then you, Two, the terror will come. You will
fight it the whole way, panic, rage, and fear. I won't let them
play you Enya and
smooth your brow. I will not be polite,
not to your awful parents,
not to your bad husband,
not nobody. I will get you what you need and put out the
fire of fear
I know you've carried your whole life. Big, bad,
beautiful drugs. I will not
leave your bed. They will never
speak to me again, but I will see to you. You like the angel you
always were, never knew you were,
drifting, peaceful at last, my love over you, on an Ativan cloud.

And you, Three, you won't be concerned that you're dying, only
if you're doing it right.
Perfectionist, high maintenance, I'll know
all your picadillos. No one
may touch your pillow, or your face. No
scented lotions, the window always a crack open, and
I'll tell you
all the time
that the house is so clean
that the mail has been gone through
that the lawn is watered
that you're doing such a good job. You'll drive, I'll be shotgun,
and you will
never see my hand on the
bottom of the wheel
like it always was.

Oh my dear Four. For you, no fuss. You won't stand it. It is
never about you. I will fly so low under your radar and
all but ignore you until you're
ready
until you
ask
then I will come and hold you like my own baby in my
arms, your head on my chest
for the mother you
never had and
lullaby you kiss you sing you
to sleep, go to sleep, go now. You will.

Finally, my Five. You will delight in death, another
miracle gifted to you, celebrate with such joy such
beautiful blooms such peace, so radiant, divine. You always did
know how to live.
You will
suffer only that you wish you could
share this incredible thing with all whom you love.
How easy.
I won't
sleep, will press my ear to your
lips, listening, passing the electricity back and
forth with you, magic, miracle, floating
up with you
until you finally
just disappear.

Until then, my Five, we'll play it light. I'll send you socks on your
birthdays. Postcards of things I think
you might like, and
email quizzes meant to reveal what we
already know. As if every breath isn't bringing you closer
to death, your end, the end of us, this way. I know
what I know and I know what I wish and when I say
I'm here for you
this, this above all is so
much what I mean. I'll never tell.
You'd just all say,
its that nursing home job of yours getting
to your head.

I'll know, not so. Its just this simple truth
and my simple love
and I'll go ahead and make my plans
while finishing the potatoes and starting the
stuffing and saying, in a circle, my thoughts about you, all:
that I'm thankful for you
that I love you
that I hope I get to be there.

11/26/08

Pie-making break. Pie-eating break. Watching TV and going to bed early break.

Postcard

You're in Dubai, or Singapore, or
somewhere on some business junket and I don't
know what you do everytime you tell me I find it
so impossible to listen but what I do know is that I
am here at home and I am doing our
laundry and its November so rainy so surprisingly
warmish and these sheets out of the dryer onto the bed smoothed by my
hands await you oh come home fly
the redeye come all the way back and get in our bed you'll
be so tired fall right to sleep I'll allow it and amuse myself by
smelling you my nose to your neck, your chest, your hair, your skin
every.inch.so.warm
you'll awake just at dark rain drumming the roof to the feel of me biting your elbow just the
way I do and you will absolutely know what's next and don't you know I
smell like sweet apple-barn wood and my hair falls in your face and
makes you have to rub rub away the tickle and what in the world
does Doug from accounting and Steve-O from the
holiday party have on that oh and that terrible bar I know you're in and that strange faraway land and its crazy ways and people what could it possibly have on this, here, me, these sheets
this bed this rain this hot love light lighting me up enough to dry all this
laundry on this wet wet day all
by only alone all by all by
all by myself?

This is Ridiculous.

Seriously.

How it Came to Me

All night long I
dreamed I was in a creek, with another, I
couldn't really see. Bright sunshine.
Cattails, reeds, the hot and damp smell of mud, wet and
silty surfaces of rocks under
my fingers, water,
everywhere.

Finally, I asked.
Do I get to keep it?, I said,
And when do we stop hurting each other so much?

Somewhere from over on the bank, in the shade of a willow, she
laughed.

No, she said. You don't get to keep it. This is
not that. This is not that dream. And you'll
never
stop
hurting each other either.

She was quiet, a long time. I waited, so uncertain, in the
water.

At last, her voice, her long sad sigh.

Forgive, she said to
me.

Forgive. Then love.

Wake up now.

Thanksgiving

Once I met an Israeli man, sixtyish
in aisle nine
at Whole Foods
while picking up a can of pumpkin for
Thanksgiving pie, later in the week.

He dropped a glass jar of cherries and it
shattered
liquid, glass and wet soft red globes, everywhere, on the
polished concrete floor.
He just stood, then quietly buried
his face in his hands.
Sir, I said, concerned,
Sir
and tentatively touched my hand to his narrow shoulder, his shirt neat
and tucked, sweet-smelling, a smaller man than you'd think.
He spread his fingers, looked at
me through them, crying.
My wife is dying, he said to me, so
softly and stammering,
plainly, and we
haven't had
sex in six years.

Which was the story, the wound, the hurt, the brokenness? I
did not know. What I am so glad for all
these years later
is that I did not say I'm sorry, or hug him, or say anything
at all. Instead I dropped my can
not needed
to the floor, amidst the mess, and
joined him
held his gaze, and looked.
All was seen.
All was real.
He looked at me so long, bent his lips into the smallest smile, then
took a breath, and another
jar of cherries, and, simply, left. The stockboy
cleaned up, and
I went home. This was
Thanksgiving
that year.

Startup

Figuring out how this works. Thank you MD, for the technical assistance. What follows are drafts and works in progress, moving out of the notebook, and onto the family computer. One day, perhaps, onto a Macbook. We all have our dreams. Mine is white, luminous, and makes me write better. I don't yet know what the purpose or endpoint of this all is. So. There you have it.