The last tme I said no

There was that night I drove home and saw you seated

on the patio overlooking the San Francisco Bay, 

the lights twinkling above it, all spread before us like a galaxy. 

Then your hand waved a small hello and pointed to the chair 

beside you, unable to speak, your ears so fastened to the radio voice 

and then I heard the UFO talk and shot you a disdainful look 

and walked away. That was a time when you would have loved 

me to say, yes, to sit with you and listen to the radio and speculate 

about Area 55 with cups of brandy in our hands, feeling the night 

press on our backs, the sweet tingling mix of fear and gratitude. 

But that was not the last time I said no to you 

and I cannot remember the last time I said yes, really and truly, yes! 

--that "hurl myself through a pane of glass" kind of yes 

that I could say right now, if only you were here.

I could hurl myself into the stars, into whatever else is up there,

to say yes with such fervor, to hear what you heard on the radio 

and talk with you about unlighted stars and aliens who 

bear witness to our doomed vivacity.

I could learn secrets that might help us now.

A small space

To force me to get him that one forbidden pleasure he still desires 

in this his final year (neither knows it will be the final year 

but we consider it),  

he tells me: 

"It's all I have left in my little life."

He means it literally--his life is shrinking from town to house 

to room to king bed to hospital cot in the corner of our room. 

He has been warned: never salt, never! but he craves sausage biscuists

every morning. He is too thin to be recognized but pleads, Oh come on, 

let me have the damn biscuit. His little life comes up again.  

I wish I could explain how it feels 

to sit beside him who has been so humbled. 

To sit with him in the drive through window of McDonald's 

on our way to the dialysis center. 

To order for him the #8 breakfast: 

Sausage biscuit, coffee, hash browns, a second biscuit. 

To know it is bad bad bad but it's all the food he will want 

until tomorrow. 

To stare straight ahead, to know something is coming soon 

to kill him. 

The box

you who weigh heavy in this box, a mound, bits

of rock, consecrated chards: today i am done with you. 

i am done writing about you. 

i am done talking about you. 

my jaws ache from talking about you. 

i am done looking at you. 

my hands cramp from looking at your photos, 

from packing up your things. 

i am done thinking about you. 

thinking about you raises 

my blood pressure. thinking about you 

slows my breath, 

thinking about you 

winds me up into a knot. 

And writing no longer releases. 

it's always about loss, always this disintegration, 

always this end, never

about touching, never about hope, never resurrection:

because footprints melt with the snow--

that’s what I know.

How many different ways can i tell you 

how sorry i feel? but this life without you 

will be lived. 

i will not jump off the golden gate. 

i will not overdose 

on ativan. 

you will be the train that roars out 

of this station into the end of this world 

and i will join you but not today; 

today your whistle will blow more faint, 

its scream will fade far from this room. 

this is relief. this is what i need. 

because i am exhausted. 

because my tear ducts have dried up. 

because i need to sleep a whole night. 

because i need to eat. 

because I cannot go on like this,

filled to the brim with fright and rue, 

with dread, because it only gets worse

if I let it.

.

I wish

Suddenly his eyes open with glee

therein--amused as if interrupted 

from a story an old friend is telling--

which makes his face young and handsome again,

the sight of which takes my breath. 

I lean over the rail of the hospital bed, my face above his, 

a strange joy surging in me
to see him again so unencumbered. 

I take his hand in mine, shyly, because I have not
taken his hand enough, 

I realize that now, I have been too stingy with this aspect 

and a spark of self hate flares but I ignore it and hold 

his boyish gaze in mine, gulping it down because he has been sick 

so long and so much has been tried to heal him but now 

there is nothing left to try yet he seems not to know 

that time is closing in, he seems amused, 

he seems pleased to see me, pleased to hold my hand. 

I love you, I say, and his pupils shine clear as bubbles 

and glisten with amusement when he says, I love you too, 

and for a long time our eyes can not move and then his close again.

I do not know this is the last time but I do know he closes them 

without fear or regret, without worry and woe, without memory, 

anger, pain. That's how it seems to me. 

I could say I wish I knew for sure but what I know 

is enough.

It's not working

Some say reach out.

They say beat a path to another door, seek 

the gloss of some society.

Such unreason, as if we mourners could

like eels travel so far from our lagoons. 

We can only toy with fact and fiction. 

Multiple reflections come so easy 

to the grieving mind whose grid of tumbling

images oscillate at crazy angles and circle

back to one thing only: crying spells.  

As when his shadow steps into the hall.

I see it slip from room to room and out 

the iron gate but I, immobile in this 

melancholy trance, can't get up to verify.

So I let myself wonder, was it him, is it true?

And that thought--every thought--ferries me 

back to raucous pain.

Thanksgiving

Thank you, husband, for loving me 

even when I was not loveable,

for calling me by my true name 

and no other, for being my home

and always close by, 

for the lovely sounds but also

the quietude, the coolness and calm,

your courage and goodness.

Thank you for enabling me to sleep soundly 

through 13,000 nights.

Thank you for all this and for all 

the other vital things. 

Moving

Move, 

I say to me, 

move away from the shore,

move deep, 

move beyond the swells, below the waves and roar 

down into seabed, 

move along the reefs, along the vents, crawl with crabs, 

join your grief down there. 

Do not faint,

by that I mean let it move 

and let it be moved in you

which is to say 

accept your being, 

let grief have its way, 

which is to say, 

yes he is gone now and you 

will always, always know it.