Thinking of her infected lungs. There is nothing anyone can do. The exhausting dreams that take all night and wake me up but I have only been asleep for 90 minutes. The aching spasms in my legs. The box of ashes on the chair. “Aspiration pneumonia,” the death certificate said,* from stroke-affected swallowing that lets [...]
marriage
Leave the path
Nothing over there but air. I’m still sleeping on the sheets I changed to on her final weekend when I thought that she’d be coming home. I used to come to bed and run my hand along her hip to let her sleeping self know it was me. Three weeks ago I put an extra [...]
Send her home to me
“Is this John? I’m Kathleen’s nurse at Taos Living Center. I need your permission to send your wife to the ER at Holy Cross. She doesn’t look good at all.” Me, buying lampshades at fucking Walmart, yanking my mask off to speak clearly into the phone. Everyone has disappeared, the world gone black… “I don’t [...]
Hang in there baby
In the middle of tearing up the joint, attacking piles of dusty junk that’s walled us in after 17 years together in the old adobe. Blow ‘em up, sort the pieces, make more piles in other places while I vacuum. The whole damn shitteroo is worthless if I don’t fill the trash can, though. Has [...]
Sweet Kathy two days after an eternity ago
What the everloving hell? She turned and flopped and flailed her arms. This was crazy. “Honey, what’s the matter?” I pleaded in the dark at 3:00 a.m. No answer. Flop and spin, limbs slapping me all over, no words. Good God. I turned on the light: my honey was contorted, head turned to the right, [...]
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