A Life in Print Preview, and: Out of Breath

A Life in Print Preview

My calculations—eighteen nighttime hours,on a photobook for my daughter's school.A toddler's birthday feted in circle timewith cake, and her, for once, her turn to steplightly round while holding up a globe—one "walk around the sun" for every yearof life. Four times, she'll spin around her friends.I loathed the thought of storing a large boardof pictures, stickers, words in bright pink paint.Now I'm stuck. How can you summarize a child?The computer glows: I'm just halfway.I am behind at work. The laundry's piledso high we cannot open the bathroom door.Last night's dishes crust in the sink. I stayawake and shuffle photos, write captions,click refresh. The sun slowly turns the sky to milk,and I decide that, in another hour,I'll call my parents to say hello. For now,I curse the screen, sip cold black coffee,and wait for resolution to appear.

Out of Breath

You lie on the edgeof your pillow, the edgeof your bed in this room at the edge of the hospital.Your eyes face the window.A sliver of dim light edges its waythrough thick gray clouds and slatted shadesonto your cheek.

How is it we can walk,back straight, neck strong,right into the face of death?Which comes with a tap on the shoulderfrom a mugger's dull pipeor the crackle of metal as a car compacts.Or comes in a room like this, in a slow unwindingof a heart, the last breath held ontolike a rope unraveling,frayed ends disappearing.

The ground below us turns to dust.The air blooms with smoke;black particles coat our lungs.Water-borne bits soak into skinwhile rising tides of hothouse bugs and couture cropsinfuse our streams of blood.We sit like toy ships in a child's tubriding waves that grow only to return.Death comes like a lover,and we turn our cheek to catch its light.I am sorry, my friend.

I cannot watch. I run from the building,run without stoppingeven though it is raining.