The Day God Disappeared
“You can pretend you talk to Him
But He ain’t here
He’s gone.”
You’re here.
The day sunny and windless – rare during the winter.
Carrion birds stalk lower and lower, suddenly sail up, then
scroll their way down, finally shooting back up carrying
their cemetery.
You’re here.
But you’re not sure why. Through some fault of yours?
Who is so angry with you that they’d do this?
Is it something you failed to do?
Maybe, because of all the other things you did but were not
caught?
Nevertheless, you are here.
And your throat constricts, then reverses itself
from a stench that chokes as you awaken to glide
from sleep into reality inside what remains of your domicile
with walls the color of ash.
You settle inside a ghostly vision. Try to sort your thoughts,
but your memory screams within its cage
Hunched forward at a round table.
To your right a man who killed four women
after climbing through their second story windows
then stomping them with his climbing spikes.
To your left a man with two dull blue teardrops
below his right eye.
Tomorrow each will pass the other in silence.
Gaze through. Walk as if not there.
It’s a hard lesson learned – that invisible line you cannot cross.
Not a gate. Nor a fence. Nor a wall.
But a two-foot demarcation inside which you are required
to turn away – look down, hands rigid at your sides, palms exposed.
Your place is away and away from.
What you do not know, but will learn is
your decisions and choices have vanished.
From this point forward, you cannot make
an independent decision about where,
or for how long you can sleep,
where your drinking water comes from,
where, or for how long, you can sit.
Someone else decides for you.
Your decision-making ability peeled away –
food, amount, availability, quality,
When to eat, where to eat.
Someone else decides for you.
Nor can you decide on the temperature or
quality of the air you breathe. Nor your clothes,
their cleanliness, not even when and with whom
you shower. You can no longer decide whether
to open a door, to close a door,
to stand beside a door, to pass through a door.
Someone else decides for you.
You no longer decide how much reading light to have.
Nor when that light will be dimmed or turned off.
Not your toothpaste. Not your toothbrush.
Someone else’s decision.
Basic medical care. Not today.
A doctor, unable to speak English or Spanish,
might be here on Tuesday. Maybe, if he is not somewhere else.
Pray you do not have any illness requiring medicine not on the formulary. If so, you are shit out of luck.
Pray there’s someone to talk with
There isn’t.
Pretend you’re not here, but you are.
Someone else has made that decision for you.
A Place You Could Not Follow
I’ll soon be there
And our lives, still joined, will separate
Maybe ever so slightly – a crack in the foundation
Possible deeper and faster than anticipated
My speed will diminish
My understanding will lessen
My patience – such as it is – will dissolve
I barely survived yesterday –
Heart irregularities, dizziness, loss of balance
My fear – perhaps a recognition from decades
Working with physicians
negated a call to the doctor Only to be
sent to the emergency room Only to be
told to sit for ninety minutes To be
without medication Because
Doctors are in short supply Because
beds are in short supply Because
I’d rather die at home
even if alone
I remained silent as you left the house To
Help your brother To
Visit your grandson
I remained on our reclining divan In case
I fainted In case
the blood pressure cuff read lower
the pulse higher
than before you drove away
86/42 – 119 pulse
64/31 – 124 pulse
Repeated every fifteen minutes
Dizziness and disorientation as if from a blow to the head
Chest exhausted
Frozen inside stunned incomprehension Decisions
too complicated Movement
too difficult Breaths
too short.
At Home With You
Tomorrow when you emit some earthy epithet at a passing driver
you will be repeating my words
Every time you drive on I-70
you will remember I’m nearby
Whenever you hold a book, I will be there
When you touch your sons, you will remember me
When your granddaughter, and, many years later
your great-grandsons reach for you, you will see me
And each evening, I will be at home with you.
Was It Then
So full of myself and my future.
I cannot remember your face on that night. Were you crying? Were your eyes moist? Were you eager for me to stay? To leave? Was it then you decided?
Perhaps it was then
On that third step to your house
at two-thirty on that morning
In that darkness where
thick trees excluded light
Merely shards of remaining
shadows Then a sudden coolness
as if heat dissipated leaving a
breeze deleting the detritus of three years.
On that third step in the familiarity
three years brings
From removing
Touching
Stroking
Legs and breasts smoother that anything since
Lips softer and more accepting
That very early morning – so late –
When I was traveling North
And you East
That morning, or maybe just a moment earlier,
We made our decisions.
Decisions not realized until much later.
In that moment before I had to separate
Perhaps at that very moment,
We loved
Were in love
Wanted to be in love
When love would never come again
That exquisite time when loss exerts its pull
A tug from a heart belted forever with
regret – never recovered but always
Pointing in the direction of you.