Writing until I forget how cold my feet
are right now. My Manhattan room has been
'has been' for over half a century. The stone walls,
the crumbling furniture appendages swell with my
tossed laundry. Entering this room feels like
walking into a cavern, the staggering stalagmite
piles of books on every free flat surface.
This space gets smaller everyday,
my pages turn quicker, my words get smaller.
Our phone calls never seem to lighten the dark
maybe only tonight my humor has that old
tangy flavor she misses, or just remembers
missing.
Her heart palpitates regardless of what I say.
Mitral valve...something, she says
Prolapse--welcome to the club, now we
can really know each other. Not just the nine
years we've spent trying to scan each
other like cats, now we can X-ray your
whole body and match our defects.
We are soft machines, I tell her.
I imagine her heart failing. I would gladly
give her mine, but it beats with the same
irregular problem she's trying to rid,
ha, much like our relationship
it beats and beats, pumps and gurgles
and eventually misses a step and burps something
violent. We were meant to destroy
each other with this disease the hospital
calls love.
The most potent strain is almost rare
definitely contagious, definitely deadly.
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