Galaxy
My
father is in his bed.
He
has died and the Hospice
Nurse
is washing him.
I
stay close.
She
tells me my father
was
very sweet. I agree.
He
was, but not always.
He
was many, many things.
She
doesn’t know.
She
didn’t know him.
What he meant to me.
I
help her move him so
she
can bathe his back.
Then
she washes
his
hands, slowly. Later
the
funeral home people come
in
a hearse, with a stretcher.
My
mother, my sister, we say
goodbye
to my father.
I
follow the stretcher out the door,
down
the walkway,
watch
him slide into the hearse.
You see,
I
was always the little planet
that
circled him. He was the sun
of
my world. I want to stay
near
him. But he moves away,
headed
towards a clean, new
galaxy.
Biopsy
The
needle entered me,
pulled
something out.
During
the biopsy,
I
cried. It hurt.
But
I was also
thinking
of someone
cruel
to me; he curdled
my
insides, my heart.
What
did the Doctor
see
on her slide?
I
know now it wasn’t
cancerous,
wouldn’t kill.
But
whatever was pulled
out
of me — I’m sure
every
dark cell of it
carried
his name.
Brief Bio:
Tricia
Marcella Cimera is an obsessed reader and lover of words. Her work is, or will
be, in these diverse places: the Buddhist Poetry Review, Foliate Oak,
Hedgerow, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Prairie Light Review, Reverie
Fair, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones and Yellow Chair Review. Tricia volunteers locally, believes there's
no place like her own backyard, and has traveled the world. She lives with her husband and family of
animals in Illinois/in a town called St. Charles/by a river named Fox.
No comments:
Post a Comment