Light Snow, and: At the End
Rent from DeepDyve- Light Snow, and: At the End
Light Snow
All the morning's early hourssnow has fallen on the compost's dead leaves, quietly covering compacted layers, has drifted down
upon the house of my wife's friend Mattie, a woman our age who has hadlymphoma, a hip and two knees replaced, and now
breast cancerso "advanced," as if the tumors were precocious students, that it has spread
to her spine, liver, skull. She lives on morphine. The doctors are afraidher spine will crumble like old, weathered limestone. At 6 AM
I woke from a dreamin which my wife was writing down and reading aloud to me all [End Page 76]
the things she wanted to do with the rest of her life: finish her hundredsof rough drafts, loose leaves of poems scattered across the floor.
She wanted to throw awaythe clutter in her study, keep it swept clean. Last night before going to sleep, Dana told me
that her mother, as she lay dying of lung cancer, possessed only five dresses,a favorite gold necklace and earrings, and one worry stone,
smooth ovoidof white jade that she liked to hold. She had "purged" or given away
everything else. It's time for me to make my own lists. The things I mustrelinquish—bank accounts, job, car, continence, and finally
sunlight. The thingsstill to do—complete the two books I'm working on, make a few new friends, see my mother through
her last days, water the poinsettias, help my daughters grow up, cook tonight's blackenedswordfish, artichokes with lemon butter, grow old, if I'm lucky,
with the woman I love despitebeing attracted to men, look after my brother with Down syndrome, retire to a rickety
house by the ocean, die. But all these plans, except for the last item, can be altered at a moment'snotice or deferred for eternity. The snow has stopped. I go out [End Page 77]
to walk the dogwhile simultaneously saying the rosary, as I do every day. Hail Mary,
hail half inch of snow that covers the garbage strewn in the alley by the dogswho have torn open the green trash bags so they spill
their gutsin the ice-rutted back street. The sidewalk blinds me, is treacherous. Hail the eaves' icicles
big as organ pipes, their hymns of sun and silence. A man in brown coveralls blows snow offhis sidewalk with a leaf blower. Scintillant smoke,
snow clouds swirlaround his thighs, then settle to the lawn. The ordinary will go on.
Hail Mattie still alive. Hail your pain. Hail how lonely it is to die alone,as each of us will. Hail your parents who wanted to die
before youbut will not. Hail your stooped father's tears. Hail the new snow that makes our black roofs shine. [End Page 78]
At the End
Pain is whatI inherit. It is written that at the end the pain doctor shall be our lord
and master. Some neighbor, friend, or blood relative will feel compelled to help mestagger with a walker over new snow and pitch
forward intothe backseat of his poorly heated car, beshit myself but not go back
to the house to clean up. I will lie flat, drool on the cold vinyl because it istoo painful to sit upright. Someone holds a live coal between
tongs to the baseof my spine. I speak in tongues. My neighbor will not understand these groans, grunts,
slobberings. Let the stench of shit arise from my fouled loins like incenseto praise my maker. I am made in his vainglorious image,
185 poundsof fat, bones, and muscle that will no longer obey me. I am tied
and trussed, hog taken to market. At the hospital I will be auctionedoff, put on a gurney, wheeled to exam rooms, [End Page 79]
to Radiology.I am hooked to a vitals monitor. I wait for the coming of our master
in all his anaesthetized glory. His ministering angels precede him, give me oxygen,catechize me. What is the one...
