(for KathyLee)
She can’t tolerate me now
I can feel it in the 4% of her remaining.
She is too tired and
I am abandoning her with
two quick calls each week.
“Can’t talk long,” I say
“Got a client in a few minutes,” I lie –
I never mastered how to sit in quiet presence in the distance of phone lines
also,
she weighs on me now, like quicksand
and I feel myself drowning in
the gritty soil of grief.
I’m choosing the life she cannot live.
Her vitality bleeds out and I
am an opportunistic vampire.
Having trudged through the shadow of her death
I clutch this life to my chest.
Food is sweeter.
I notice everything I touch.
I linger.
I embrace.
I feel, and even this grief I love.
It means I am alive.
In her tragedy
I revel in my life
I don’t want to waste a moment.
Maybe I should not hold such bliss while she withers,
I hold it close to me anyway
this precious precious life
I will live this joy because she cannot
© Sabrina Santa Clara, 2008