20 Instances of Death
I.
I think he’s waiting for you to die, my mother hisses into the corded telephone in his kitchen.
Mom! I scold, heat rising to my face. Can he hear you?
She’s pressing buttons on the microwave. There’s a loud scratch - she’s dropped the phone - then a whirring, a ping.
Whoops! she says. Gotta go.
*
The table in the dining room is covered in unopened mail, orange pill bottles, old receipts.
His neck cranes above the backside of the recliner, C-SPAN, volume maxed.
I sneak up and drop a kiss on his bald head, inhale Bay Rum.
Oh! he says, his hands flying into the air before he spins to face me.
Glad I didn’t scare you to death, I say, and lean in for a hug, his hearing aids whistling.
*
The nurse warned me that dysphagia and cookies don’t mix, he reports.
I’ve unpacked my enormous suitcase as well as a sleeve of Oreos.
I shift in the gold recliner, still stamped with the shape of Gigi, gone a decade.
I set the cookies between us, pour two glasses of milk.
II
On my 15th birthday, we sipped Fribbles and talked about spelunking cannot be avoided in a well-lived life.
If you’re brave enough to explore the darkest caves, he said, you’ll discover creatures it will take a lifetime to understand. The rewards are not immediate, he cautioned, reading my brow, but it’s how you escape becoming a dull adult.
So, dive in and bring a flashlight? I asked.
Clever move, tricking me into a lifetime of introspection by framing it as a dare.
III
He moans in his sleep.
I should pull a chair to his bed,
keep the covers tucked to his chin -
instead,
at the threshold of his bedroom,
I count breaths.
One, two, three,
nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
My heart pounds, scared he’s died
under my watch
when his eyes snap open,
legs thrashing under sheets,
then he gags,
sputters,
sinks back
into green-black mud.
*
Scuttling back to the couch, Us Weekly
turned to pulp on the coffee table,
I nurse a terrible hunch:
I’m a lily-livered, yellow-bellied rat.
*
No.
Dirt-stained, astride a chestnut mare,
galloping through forest to headland,
an ungodly shriek stops us cold.
The mare sniffs the air, shudders.
Chin upturned, battle axe skyward,
my ruby lips part to release a war cry
so fierce a killer whale breaches.
The thought fills me with embarrassment.
I eat.
IV
Cheyne-Stokes.
He stops breathing for 62 seconds at a time.
My mother times it on her watch.
I can’t stay underwater for that long, she says.
V
He spends his days underwater,
a steelhead swaying over pink rock
and mats of emerald algae.
Whirligigs blur the surface.
Moving closer to examine
the speckled olive of his back,
slick of rose, I cast a shadow.
His caudal fin snaps,
propelling him upstream.
VI
You should learn how to play World of Warcraft!
says my brother over a bowl of spicy Pad Thai.
Sad? Just kill an abomination!”
VII
His heart is failing, reports the nurse.
My mother strokes his forehead.
My sister holds one hand, me, the other.
A failing heart can be fixed
by a closed circuit of love
we believe, childishly.
VIII
We think he is minutes away.
We think that it will happen in the next few hours.
We think we should start making phone calls.
We think we should page the nurse.
The doorbell rings.
“THE GODDAMN BELL!” he roars, foaming.
IX
When he dies, I suspect it will snow.
Or it won’t.
I read my horoscope.
X
I dream of falling
backwards into a pot
of black ink.
Clawing for air,
lungs burning, my fingers
scrape the bottom.
Whoops.
Wrong way.
XI
I had an affair.
Lied to my friends.
Quit my job.
Moved home.
Unpacked my bags.
Settled in to help him die.
*
At night, on the couch, I tuck pillows all around me
and pretend I’m at the center of a magical bear den,
dense with animal heat, the steady rumble of snoring
elders consoling to the sweet, helpless cub who is me.
XII
I gotta leave the house.
I meet my brother at a dive bar,
suck down a beer and a cigarette.
In the wooden booth,
I can smell it.
It’s impossible to escape, I tell my brother,
swallowing my IPA.
You can’t trick death, he shrugs,
swallowing his lager.
XIII
This hospice nurse smells like Downy and Newports,
her voice a potato peeler catching a nail.
“MAURICE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” she yells into his ear.
If I were him, I’d pretend I’m dead too.
XIV
We crush Lorazepam
in a spoon, add water,
mix it into a syringe of morphine.
When we administer
the medicine, we lift
our tongues, too.
XV
I need my nephews.
I need them to jump from furniture
and fight over stupid things.
When they show up, they’re shushed.
It’s too much right now.
They’re shuttled away.
XVI
My mother, my mother, my mother.
She doesn’t know what to say,
so she crouches close and shouts:
“I’m 61! My birthday was yesterday!”
His head rolls toward her voice.
“Can you believe it?!” she says,
her insistence the sun on his horizon.
His eyes open slowly.
He smiles!
XVII
I want a man to rescue me.
I want never to make mistakes.
I want never to lie.
I want death to be silent, painless, quick.
I want, shamelessly.
The thought fills me with shame.
I eat.
XVIII
I sit in Gigi’s uncomfortable chair repeating a mantra:
Death is oceanic but your courage a raft.
The mantra morphs:
Death is a shiver of sharks, your fear the chum.
XIX
The hospice nurse suggests
we tell him that we will be okay,
that he can let go, that the dying
need to hear they’re enough.
My mother points out that he is heavily sedated.
Yes, she says.
XX
The door to his bedroom is cracked.
A sliver of violet light
crosses the carpet,
halves the cotton sheet tucked to his chin,
climbs the bone-white wall.
On the edge of his bed,
I grab his hand
kneading warmth
until it softens,
unfolds.
In the center,
a dark hole, whorled,
widening,
mouth of an
inkwell,
black ink.
*
Not a dull adult, I dive.
*
Blinded,
sediment sinking
to dark hum.
*
A breached levee
floods his bedroom
with memory:
rawhide mitt, black soutane, beach rose,
Moskvich tomato, gold filigree pen, tea-stained missal -
the current gathering strength,
ripping,
propeling us past eddyline,
folding us into the mud-black bottom
where monochromes have sunk, blurred -
iron gate, oak pew, barber chair, stone bénitier -
water filling throat, lungs burning,
legs cramping,
regret, fear,
regret -
No.
Thighing through eddyline,
chestnut mare hitched to shore,
dirt-stained, ruby-lipped,
war cry, battle axe,
clutch,
raft,
release,
float.
*
A stretch of sunlight and fern,
a warbler’s chipped, bright song,
marsh grass, driftwood,
silver maple, bulrush,
a bend in the river,
sweet air,
the water, a mirror: You are enough.
*
There’s a still, clear pool.
Speckled olive, slick of rose.
With a flick, he disappears upstream.
I.
In the kitchen,
I join the hushed uncertainties
of the living
where we brew coffee
and makes lists,
sift for meaning,
trade myths.