As/Is







2.26.2005



I wish no one had ever said anything about these
things I say now I'm struggling
to remember James' grandmother
with the eyes like bloody
raw meat perched in the
hospital bed cutlerying her
tray meal with shaking fall
apart hands and all I

can think is "make it
brilliant" in one ear the
old woman in the big empty carcass
of a hospital in the other
the things people will say about
my dismembering of her and
straight ahead

bitter, futile anger for being
dragged along with his life, not mine,
because I'd stepped away
from dying folks and family
and he was so good, so so good,
next to my chasisted
impetuous little girl and I

swell up & up & up & up
with despair, with something, I
inflate and I float away
from him
by his nanna's bedside,
the aura of them blinding.