The Falling Action
From I am The Big Heart, Brick Books, 2020.
The Falling Action
She was sixty-nine or was it seventy? Some people said a ripe old age.
It’s said that if the young learn that they are dying, they become holy. I suppose
it’s their face. It is said, anyway. Above the barn sink, the glass held the reflection
of a barn cat leaping for a barn swallow. I saw it go down, slapped my wet hands
and seethed: Shit! Well, that’s over.
I looked everywhere for meaning: in her pyjamas, in her somewhat-holy face.
I read poems to her that were little stories: man walks into autumn beach town, is a skunk,
finds a skunk, the end.
I made lemon custard. I set spoons on the two-by-four table.
I pushed in her puritan bench. The other side of the window bloomed lilac — I can’t say
what I want that to mean — still I brought a bowl to her table. She spat spoonfuls into the napkin,
her face lit with adoration for that later-place. She made a device of folding her napkin
into smaller squares, hiding my love without looking. But who can talk about what you will miss
every minute? We turned toward signs painted Peaches, I recited.
Once she looked up and said, I’ll miss that face — I keep combing the moment. It was said.
I return to it — anything could happen.