What is left of her life has been distilled into the daily passing of dim shapes and lights. Her thoughts are ghosts between her consciousness and the soft wrinkled hand on the mattress beside her. Tape stretched over gauze reveals a thin clear tube and pulls against skin; flushed purple by its grasp. Closing into darkness, her lids descend effortlessly, allowing her retreat to the familiar reflecting pool of her life. The cool air rising into her nostrils wraps with her memory. She turns and rolls them once again like jewels in her palm. They appear, are recognized, sing their glistening tales and then evaporate one by one. The drone of the oxygen pump faintly chants a continuous stream of farewell eulogies. She is waiting for death. The hospice attendants are kind. They keep the sheets smooth and clean. They sponge her body and comb her hair. The light is filtered. Her affairs are closed. She is unpacking her memories again, perhaps for the last time. Sage smoke blowing into the wind.
Recent Comments