My Dream about Dolores, and: At Brunch with My Stepdad, I Am Grateful for My Father's Death, and: Lifting Dolores
- My Dream about Dolores, and: At Brunch with My Stepdad, I Am Grateful for My Father's Death, and: Lifting Dolores
My Dream about Dolores
She wakeson the left sideof the bed. Takesher medicineat nine o'clock.Her old neighbor asksto borrow somerum. She has a bottlefrom before Tuckerdied; she poursa few shots.The morningslopes goldenly,like violins.
At Brunch with My Stepdad, I Am Grateful for My Father's Death
Bill requests two eggs, a biscuit, butter.Under the heated lamps, we cross our legs& fold our arms & talk about Dolores.I spread my toast with jam. Really [End Page 162]
I am thinking of my mother:how she tells me not to look while cleaningthe bedpan. Cries when wanderingup & down the driveway. Sleeps
just like Dolores, mouths wide, twinchins quivering. Mourns in the shower.Bill butters his biscuit & I think of my mother,who hasn't left the house in weeks.
If I'm lucky, I will one day lose everyone I love,that I might know I loved them.
Lifting Dolores
is harder than I'd thought, looking at her waifisharms & sunken cheeks: I put one hand beneath her thighs& the other under her tailbone. Feeling her musclesseize, I say It's all right, I'm just going to scoot
you back a little bit, & I clench my teeth & dig my heels;lift her as gently as I can. For a moment I cradleher small body—the way I held my baby sisterup by the armpits so she could walk; her cheeks
flushing, fat hands grasping at my outstretched arms—the way I carried you mumbling up the stairs.I wonder if there is any greater relief than bearing,briefly, the weight of bodies; I murmur
It's okay, we're almost there. Her oxygenmachine whirs. She lets out little hums. [End Page 163]
Victoria Hudson's poems are published or forthcoming in Pleiades, jubilat, Passages North, and elsewhere. She is a poetry editor and copyeditor at the Arkansas International.
