A Sophie Post

Dear You

Dear You,

Lying next to Sophie, after an intense bout of choking, coughing, suctioning (and according to the nurse it’s not that bad, not like I’ve seen it in others), and I believe her when she says it, I’m thankful, yes, I’m thankful in the early hours of the morning, fresh, new day, and how experience can make you equally, albeit perversely, proud, proud that you’ve done it, that you’re doing it, you’re living for the most part fully and in joy, even as humility is beaten into you, day by day, year after year, decades in. The “Dear You” post — less admonition than careful statement of things like prices and tolls — paid and taken. Sophie’s hand is finally still and warm, our fingers entwined. She has gained weight and looks good, looks beautiful. She lies next to me, and I remember how she grew — once! in my belly. How she’s grown, now, from food that’s manufactured and comes from a carton, that travels through a tube into her belly. No apples, bananas , no broccoli or steak. No tomato sauce and pasta, cheese or — what? Why torture yourself, myself? Dear You. She had nearly three decades of whole foods — hopefully gave her a base for — what? I don’t know what I’m talking about. My eyes glaze over, the lids cut off the expression that would tip off the people — my people — who are still in the game, still fighting for — so many fors. I think about her death all the time now. I worry — or not worry, but wonder. I am acutely aware and strangely dissociated. The amaryllis opens late, so late, a January miracle, and I snip the pollen soaked tips of the stamens, the anthers (male) and look deep inside for the pistil (female), the ovule, the style and the stigma, buried in the center, deep inside the red frill. I feel the too much like skin I can molt, shed. My edges are numb, perhaps only faint, shadowed by irritability, the ashes of anger. What does it do — this writing, dear You? I should be sleeping but would rather be here, the light dim over my table, my book, my green-capped pen. And Sophie, asleep — hopefully her own dreams fill her head, not mine. Identity seepage and blur.