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Why Me?

I've been pondering writing something like this as a prose piece, but there's no reason it can't work as a poem. It is, sadly, the true story of my life, and how my losses are so small.

Why Me?

The question I never asked,
when diagnosed Type 1
when the vending machine arrived
hooking me on the sweet stuff.

As one eye's loss
killed my perception of depth,
depositing me on my arse
looking back at sidewalk kerbs.

When the right eye followed suit
and kidney failure ensued,
and immunosupressant drugs
let brain lymphoma in.

Why me did not apply,
until lymphoma finished off Emily at age 19,
leukemia my classmate, Chris, age 14
when I finally asked, “Why me?”

Why the fuck am I still here,
why are they not?
my trials essentially self-inflicted
theirs most certainly not.

I made cancer look
like beating it was a stroll in the park,
I would have given anything,
to be in their place.

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Solana’s Secret (prompt 17)

Solana sat at the kitchen table, tapping her saucer with a spoon.

She could barely see it anymore, but she remembered

The yellow roses from years of use, and the cup in her hand

Was familiar and comforting.

 

Her son thought she was vain because she didn’t wear her glasses

And fumbled when she reached for things.

He didn’t know the glasses no longer helped. Her vision was fading.

Soon it would be gone.

 

Each day she walked around the house as usual, filled with secrets.

Hiding her oncoming blindness.

Hiding her memory loss behind jokes.

Hiding her grief. Hiding her fear.

Hiding the new pills in her pocket.

 

She didn’t want to burden her family. No.

They could worry later. They were lucky.

Alzheimer’s has a slow clock.

 

Every time her husband went out, she went to the china cabinet

Or the photo album or the rooms upstairs where the kids stay

When they visit. She studied each familiar object,

Committing it to memory. Before her eyes failed.

Before her brain went blank.

 

The disease consumed her waking thoughts.

It never left her mind. It swamped her in grief.

She was going to forget them all. It broke her heart.

 

Soon familiar things, dear names and beloved faces

would blink out one by one. Vacations in France.

Early life in the mountains. Her wedding.

The birth of her children and how they looked sleeping.

Her husband striding down the beach all tan and windblown.

 

Not telling them would be her last gift. Christmas Eve

they would go to midnight mass, open their presents.

Then she would tell them. They would all hug a lot.

She would quietly take the pills that night.

Eventually they would realize it was a kindness.

 

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the stars

stars are overhead

again I am comforted

midnight sky is a dark sky

yet I keep the comfort

in dreams, wherever

I see the stars above.

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Everyone dies in the end

Beating around the bush is absolutely pointless.

We all know how it ends. It’s not a matter of if but when.

Midnight has nothing to say to you. Consider yourself

Lucky. In any other universe, he wouldn’t even

Know who you are. Trampled by your own forces

And nowhere left to go. Jump back through the portal,

Climb into bed and call it a night. Trust me when I say

You got off easy, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

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Karenhappuck

 
 
She was thirteen, I was six
We’d gotten her through an infection
Still the days of putting your dog out the front door
To patrol the streets nightly
She’d jump the fence anyway
Still the days of no vets
Unless the beast somehow earned its keep
We were pretty sure it was heartworm
 
I’d followed her that day
Caching a bone
Mincing through trash cans, a connoisseur
 
Daddy’s friend Jeff was over for dinner
Paper plates lining straw forms
Iceberg salad potato salad a slice of ham a glass of milk
He played catch with her and she
Raced, tongue hanging, until dinner was ready and she
Flopped at our feet
Adoring ham
 
She twitched once, then twice, then seized
Thwacking her tail against the wall
Like we got her ticklish spot
But the rest of her
Jangling strangling
Then pale
 
My uncle tried some CPR
This was 1974, remember
But he picked it up in Vietnam and
Never put it down.
 
Karen could secretly slip a candy bar out of your hand
But there was no dodge for this
 
Mom sewed a shroud to
Elevate the internment above a
Carcass in the dirt.
 
Jeff wondered if it was his fault as they shoveled and
Never visited again
 
Daddy read some Travels with Charley
She used to barf in the car too when
Conditions were wrong
David read some Thurber
We tried not to laugh and gave that up for
Guffaws
 
Joe across the street came over to commiserate, asked what happened
And a flame-headed cousin just getting the hang of talking said
“Like this!” and hit the ground jerking
 
It wasn’t his
Kind of funeral
 
David threw in a
Galvanized lid and a can of Borax she was a
sneaky dirty garbage eating hound
By which he meant epitome of doghood
 
I dug up that bone again, and gave it back to her
Forever
 
We lifted the shovels
Not a dry eye in the house
Slid the dirt back in
Nothing left of laughter but
Sad quirks on our chins
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Hour 17: I Did Nothing

I Did Nothing
In the style of Martin Niemöller

First a hole opened in the ozone
But I did nothing
For I could not see the ozone
Then the polar bears began to die of starvation
But I did nothing
For they were very far away
Then some places began to have 100-year storm events
But I did nothing
For those places were not where I was
Then the seas rose on the coastal cities
But I did nothing
For I did not live on the coast
Then winter changed to summer, crops failed,
and famine swept the land
But I did nothing
For by then, there was nothing left to do

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Crooked Lines

I lost my T-square

Searched the studio up and down

It’s nowhere to be found.

 

My “straight” lines go at a slant

Without that cap on top.

Draw a straight line— I can’t

 

Finally gave in and bought another.

Then found the first one on the counter.

Desktop organizer? Why bother?

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LIGHTS OUT (hour 16; golden shovel prompt from hour 8)

Inspired by a line from Weldon Kees’s “Five Villanelles” —

“We must remain until the roof falls in.”

LIGHTS OUT

The darkness invites us to stretch and dawdle, and we

do, pouring more wine, telling more tales. We must

be tired, but we stretch, pretend otherwise, remain

hunched beside our ebbing campfire, until

at last our yawns can’t be denied, or the

fatigue seeping into muscles. No roof

overhead; no matter, we’re all in.

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lost things -#17

lost things

i have lost a ton of things in my lifetime-
a gold ring with a ruby stone
a pair of silver diamond earrings i treated myself to
a cashmere sweater with small covered buttons
a bible with my initials embossed on the front cover-
all mysteriously disappeared;
left behind in some place probably not secret at all-
inappropriately mishandled by some strange hands
but the memory of some things have lasted longer
than the actual thing itself probably would have;
the memory helps me hold on tighter-
appreciate more.
I have lost a ton of things in my lifetime
but some memories of those things
may last forever.

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