By Marc
Mitchell
A Glass of
Zin
It was three days after your death,
and I knew what that meant. We buried you
yesterday. You hate spending your nights alone.
I passed the time tonight by visiting
Our friend, you still remember him I’m sure.
Owns the bar on Court Street. No hair. His eyes
Squeeze out of his sockets when he’s excited
But otherwise they disappear beneath
The bags of his lids.
No hair. That reminds me of you.
So I sat at the bar, and our friend shuffled
Towards me. “Darker than usual in here,”
I said.
“Not really. Maybe it’s just you,”
He replied.
“Maybe.”
The air. You used to insist that
A bar wasn’t a bar without the smoke
And I smoke and you never did and.
And I think I like it better without the smoke
Now. For a while I don’t think of the craving, the
Sickness, so perhaps I should live out my years
Behind bars. Inside bars.
The waitress—what is her name?—
Stood beside me and leaned across to our friend,
Who squinted at her and waited. “Glass of zin,” she said.
Our friend disappeared into the darkness, rummaging through
The shelves like a librarian. He returned with
A bottle of white zinfandel and a shapely wine glass
That reminded me of you. When the bottle was uncorked
He clutched the bottle by the throat,
Tilted it until the slimy pale liquid rushed
To the lip, and paused.
After a bit, the waitress—I don’t remember her name!—
Lifted the empty glass to the ceiling, peering into
Its crystal air. She shrugged. She wandered away.
It’s been three days. I ordered
A glass of zin.
It was two days after
your death,
And I wondered about the steps of grief.
I am not following them.
They are to me
Like the MC Escher drawing. The
Steps churn and turn,
never-ending, a vortex.
Everyone said it was a
nice funeral. I ordered
Your favorite flowers but I must have
Forgotten a few—there
were so many colors,
So
much variety, yet they didn’t remind me of you.
I don’t know what was
said at the funeral.
I watched the flowers and tried to recall
The times, so many, that
you and I stood in a field
With the warm spring wind and the calm
Spring blooms. You named
the flowers.
My sister said a few
words. A few. Not enough.
Beside you I remained as long as I could
And it was a lazy
Saturday morning again,
When I got up early to watch you sleep.
I cannot name the
flowers. There were hundreds.
Red and yellow and purple—
The purples must have
been violets, maybe
Irises, maybe orchids—but they were not enough.
There are not enough
stages of grief. In the past
Week, as the end approached, strangers
Pressed copies of soft
books into my hands,
Saying, “This helped me get through it,”
Implying
that one stage fits all. It is
not enough, is it?
I am reading a book now
and it urges me to
Give in for a while, let it go, give in and let go
As if grief
were Excalibur. I cannot make sense of it.
I wonder if you liked your funeral.
I am simply not a person
for flowers. You were.
Your garden, behind the house, with its
Paths leading to more
paths, entwining and never-ending,
Will soon die because I am not enough.
It was the day after your
death,
With the sun creeping
across the wood floors
As imperceptibly as breath on a summer’s day.
I listened to music, sat
in your chair,
Rummaged through the shoe
box in which you
Kept
all the things that had no normal place.
I don’t know why you
wanted to save these items.
I don’t know the
relevance they might have had.
A
shoe-string, dear? Bright red. Short
It cannot be for an
adult’s shoe.
A program for a play I
did not recall seeing.
The paper is yellow and
brittle.
A
picture frame without a photograph.
The dirty glass held my
reflection.
The sun closed in on the
coffee table, an advancing
Army of
dull heat. I could see the
dust in the air
Swirling like anger, and it made me angry,
All these things I didn’t
understand, these remnants
Of a life that was my life
and not my life all the same.
A
marble. A
rip of cloth. The arm of a doll.
I got up and placed the
box on the table as the
Sun finally closed in for
the kill. It struck at the marble
And at the framed glass,
was repelled. The sun
Shattered into prisms
that splattered against the wall,
The
furniture, the ceiling. I got
up to ask you about these
Things,
forgetting that you could not answer.
But witnessing the war
the sun had lost,
I received the answer
anyway.
Asking is an insult.
It is the day of your
death,
And you don’t know it.
You feel it,
Though, you sense it the
way our cat
Predicts
the weather. It is
instinctual.
For the first time in
weeks your hand is
Squeezing, squeezing,
squeezing, clutching
my own hand which is unable to squeeze back
For
fear of giving you enough peace to let go.
You must hate me for
that. I don’t blame you.
We worked so long for
this moment and everything
Is
ready except me. The nurse
eases everyone from the
Room, ushering them into
the hall where I once watched
You falling, gasping,
crying, fitful with rage, clumps of hair
Clutched
in your fists. There are sobs.
There are murmurs.
Your face sags and is not
the face I will remember, perhaps, but
It is still your face and
I lean forward, lean into your scent that is not
Your true scent, and I touch my lips to your lips, which feel dry and
hot.
The squeeze, the opposite
of birth, the push, the touch, a last touch, your last
Sensation, this squeeze
with my hand it must be for release, it must be to release
Because
it happens instinctually and then you are gone. You are gone.
Flow
It is a year before your death,
But neither of us knows it.
You move beneath me like water
And I possess the flow of your body, letting it pass
Through my fingertips, pressing my chest against the
Rolling stream of your back, hips, stomach, breasts,
The legs that rise and fall like the tide, the mouth
Like a whirlpool, pulling me in, reaching always for
Something that is not mortal and is not mine to give.
We are night. Glistening sweat
Stars us. The night sky reflects on your water body.
Your hand moves into my hair and tugs playfully, daringly.
I don’t know why such small movements become important
But it excites me, just as you begin to boil when I
Bite, too hard, the slender canal of your neck. These things
That lovers do, they can’t be explained. They are
mysterious creatures
That push against their surroundings, the slightest
movement
Causing currents, ripples, tsunamis, hurricanes. These excitements
Thrive in the cryptic depths of the ocean and when they come
To the surface it is always a surprise. A revelation.
And then we are water. We merge and surge.
We are the night seas, furious, relentless, beating against the air
And ripping into the shores of undiscovered countries.
And then we are steam, burning away in a hot rising sun.
Our star sweat dries. Our excitements return to the depths.
What remains is the sound of breath, the quiet rhythm of
Life above sea level, and your breath is straining, even now,
Is laced with the last, greatest secret. As we drift off to sleep,
Body to body, the sun rises and you mention the appointment
Next week. I close my arms around you and begin to know.