We are Starved

Many Are the Ruined Cathedrals of the Heart

33 A PARADISE The cries of children. My children. Inveigh, inveigh. Is it suffering? And whose? The cat that moves through the house with a map of blood and matter and discomfort inside it? The abscess assuaged by the shunt glaring from his side, flashing three wet spots welled up to just a drop of blood without dropping? My daughter running, shouting, as he sidles up to her, keep it away, keep it away, I don’t want it! ~ The despair when nothing can be forced to live but goes on living anyway, making all that live around him aware of all that he is not— whole, healthy, likely to live more than one day. To come to the moment of hope to the moment of never-come-back. Reaching it. Your father three months in, and what the doctors said, and what we all thought. 34 And now this. The cat dragging its slow, wounded length along, the children fleeing his red itch. ~ How did we come to this? Did we, without meaning to, provoke him? All those times we wished he were gone or dead or injured beyond repair. He is lighter than us, than he used to be. You said you would carry him on your shoulder and you do now that he is lost inside himself, like a shadow or a ghost, only heavier. You ask me who did this to him, his days forced inside, moving from room to room, calling in that low-bellied, sexual (how else explain it) moan. Like words that do not get said or being said only speak for what should not be said— I want to die, I want to die. ~ Last night, the door open again and his fumbling his way down the hall. Wanting out, let me out, you fuckers, let me out. ...