Do Not Resuscitate.
they asked me if I knew
what it meant and said
that if something happened
– anything –
that I should know what to do.
– nothing.
though we’d been doing it all along
as if we each had been to the hospice.
just watching your hair fall out and
your body eat itself.
and we never even blinked when
the cancer consumed the rest.
we just inhaled when
you could not.
we didn’t know that
it was then you had chosen –
“go for a walk around the neighborhood”
you said.
“the air is so nice today.”
and when we returned
we did not resuscitate you.
I only woke myself because
when your body turned against you
I was falling in love with
a lovesick boy who knows neither
death nor god –
both you are familiar with.
it was your last sunny afternoon
that I finally took a break from him.
– remember?
the afternoon we all sat and
enjoyed the warm sun while you
receded into your weakened mind
your eyes blackened by removal.
and no one wanted to go inside for
we knew we’d never climb or
help you up
those scratchy concrete stairs again.
but instead the sun turned cold like your skin and
we went into your empty
stone house and talked about
Do Not Resuscitate.
a brief moment eclipsed
by reality.
like my day with the boy.
I took in everything about him that
you are not.
using my lips to borrow life from him
we carved a future with no one but
ourselves and eternal sunshine –
only for a pile of dishes to sober
us to the shadowed sun.
we will resuscitate for now while
discovering life and
preventing new ones.
pretending you are not covered
with earth and
coming for me.
so here I am.
naked.
touching my breasts.
waiting for you to appear.
waiting for no one to
awaken me.
[while listening to the antlers' hospice album.]