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I
Bereft, Mourning
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Cross-Country Lines
JANE HAYMAN
You are leaving
changing into leaf
breath
slipping away in pale fires.
I barely hear you. The sheets
are louder than
your voice
—they flutter above you,
unfolding
like leaves in a book
falling from a shelf.
It is your self
falling, your self.
I wish I could
play with the wires
and put back the sound
that song
you sing in my sleep
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Afterword
JANE HAYMAN
Last night I dreamed it all
in clear colors:
our house of weathered stone;
the sky, the river
blue and green as glass;
some lemon-colored mountains to the left
and, to the right, the rows
of golden lemon trees;
me in a long white dress, forever bridal
and you beside me, laughing,
your leopard face alive
(alive) in the lucid air.
Today the papers advertise your death.
The heart has failed
as it had failed so many times,
your heart, my heart.
Gone now, gone—
and gone that many-colored,
that elegant invention,
our unlived life.
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Vigil
PATRICIA WELLINGHAM-JONES
The hospice nurse whispers
in your abandoned ear,
It’s all right to go,
Pat will be OK.
The cats hold their silent vigil.
Java hunches against your thigh,
Smudge crouches on your lap,
both watch my every move
without a twitch.
I pull up your desk chair, stretch
my arm between bed rails,
hold your frail flaccid hand,
gently stroke.
The afternoon sun
travels its course in the sky,
windows grow dim.
Just before full dark
the cats leap from your bed,
dash outside, disappear.
Your eyes flare open in a wild stare.
You gasp, take two spaced breaths.
Eyelids at half mast, you leave
on an exhalation.
Head bowed I sit,
your warm hand in mine,
and wait.
Minutes later, with a long sigh
I rise, close your eyes.
Press my lips to your forehead,
pick up the phone.
The cats don’t come back
until the next day.
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Falling
MAUREEN TOLMAN FLANNERY
Coyote, wily as time, is used to pursuing
his swift nemesis off the edge of a cliff,
blurred legs spinning like wheels,
the momentum of chase propelling him
straight out over the canyon where his
being oblivious carries him, keeps him aloft.
Only when some vague sense of disequilibrium
suggest he check his ground does the looking down
send him plummeting through the nothing solid
where he is surprised to find himself.
For you the phone’s ring was the movement
forward—off the edge of the world,
that trajectory from which it almost seems
you should be able to reverse the propeller
of numb limbs spinning, flailing,
that they might carry you back to the rim
of something firm that would hold your weight.
But you were racing onto air and have looked down.
Now you are free falling
and cannot see the bottom.
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Threshold
ANN SINCLAIR
The not-yet widow stands at the closet door,
Surveys the shirts suspended in dark air,
The shoes arranged in neat pairs on the floor.
Decisions must be made. From what he wore
Select the things his body and mind can bear.
The not-yet widow stands at the closet door.
His presence fills the space. Her memories soar
Though his are gone. She wishes he were here
To rearrange the shoes on the closet floor.
He’s not. One must decide. One can’t restore.
To give to charity is to declare.
The not-yet widow stands at the closet door.
This shirt with snaps, well washed, will suit him more,
These woolen slippers, familiar, soft with wear.
No more those well worn boots on the closet floor.
Who makes pronouncements? Who assumes the chore
Of stating what he comprehends or cares?
The not-yet widow stands at the closet door,
Surveys the shoes in neat pairs on the floor.
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Ironing at Dawn
COOPER GALLEGOS
You stand here ironing before dawn
the long-sleeved white shirt
you make stiff with starch
stepping on the arm as it trails the floor
He didn’t come home last night
You expect the worst
certain the only thing
to keep him away
would be death
You imagine the funeral,
handing the fresh shirt to the mortician
Walking with grace like Jackie Kennedy
to view the body that looks back at you
with contempt buried beneath the full beard
His name in plastic letters on a sign at the door
like he always expected
Like a book signing
Ironing beneath the kitchen light at dawn
The first sense of widowhood hanging
comfortably like a shawl over
your shoulders
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