She’s still warm, you said, touching her forehead
how did you know to close her eyelids
we sat with her for a while
then went in the yard to smoke on the steps
a few feet away on the other side of the French doors
her body still lay in the hospital bed
the whole time she was dying you had to sneak cigarettes
because the smell made her sick
all her senses heightened after chemo
a fire truck went by and you howled like a dog
that’s what your mom did when she heard sirens
she howled to prompt her dogs’ howling
XIX.
you lit candles while Valerie stood behind
your mother’s body and sang “Amazing Grace”
you removed the IVs from her arms and placed them
on the tray where her next round of medications waited
I held her stiffening body as you rocked it side to side
trying to free her arm from a pajama sleeve
twice you tried to pull the catheter
from between her legs, but it wouldn’t budge
XX.
I learned from you how to prepare a body
you filled a bowl with soapy water
dropped in perfume and rose petals
dipped the washcloth in the rose water and moved it over her
cleaning around the stubborn catheter last
then you dried her gingerly with a towel
and spread lotion over her arms and each finger
we looked at her closet of shoes
everyone but me knew not to leave jewelry on
because it would be stolen at the mortuary
when she was completely prepared
you put your fingertips on her forehead and kissed her
you waited hours before calling the hospice nurse
to tell her your mother had died
because once they sent someone for her body
it would be taken away forever
XXI.
for hours we were high from your mother’s death
I know it’s hard to imagine the word beautiful here
but we were there and know it’s the only word
the grace that filled you as you held her hand and told her
to keep going, to not be afraid, to not look back
when you finally called the hospice worker
she said they’d send someone to come pick up
the hospital bed and medications and walker
we’d forgotten about the walker
it seemed like an eternity since your mother had walked
XXII.
we waited for the paramedics in the driveway
smoking and making phone calls
retelling the story of her beautiful death
to everyone in her phone book
the ambulance surprised us
it pulled up without sirens on
two polite men slid a gurney out the back
unsnapping each of its wheeled legs
I was afraid of seeing your mother’s body taken away
they gave you a moment alone to say goodbye
and then zipped her inside a bright-blue body bag
and pushed her on a gurney out the dim hallways of
her own house
XXIII.
your mom wanted her ashes scattered in a stream
that held water she was baptized with late in life
the stream was on top of a mountain
accessible only in summer, located by a handmade map
I watched as you listened, eyebrows raised
hovering over her bed as she whispered this request in her
final days
but you promised her everything, even though
you had no idea how you’d get up that mountain
Part Two
Crying Season
I.
you took the pillow that propped her head up
plump, like a pillow in a coloring book
big down marshmallow with a goose-head tag
and walked around the house
trying to pull the scent from its depths
at night you wrapped your arms around it and slept
I’d never been around grief this big, it scared me
long after her scent was gone
you kept the pillow propped on your bed
II.
Few lesbian relationships survive the death of a mother,
my therapist said
I was so mad when she said that
We will, we will, I thought
III.
after I left you I had nowhere to live
so I moved into my tiny writing studio
the only place for my bed was behind a window
a few feet from a noisy bus stop
while I lay awake waiting for daylight
my thumb searched my ring finger in the dark
looking for the missing silver band
it hunted helplessly, like a dog that runs up
to every person on the street that resembles its dead owner
IV.
first thing in the morning
my dog Rorschach and I walked to the coffee shop
when we returned, I opened the blinds and sat down
on the bed
the people at the bus stop ate candy and drank sodas
letting their wrappers drift away behind them
sometimes they watched me inside my diorama
did I say diorama, I meant aquarium
and I was the fish that swam in small predictable circles
waiting for Crying Season to begin
V.
have you ever been lost like this, hours spent facedown
unable to understand how you ended up
with your heavy limbs or the tattoos that cover them
at night, Rorschach settles her old dog body
next to mine with no regard for my grief
during the day, I sift dumbly through milk crates
filled with eight years of cards and presents
there are two pictures of us at the amusement park
on our first date after you admitted cheating
each of us alone on a green bench, our young faces
smile cautiously from behind the same stuffed pig
VI.
and then the walking began
I set out with Rorschach and made giant loops
of the neighborhood from morning until night
trying to know how to live next
we walk past the car wash where the stalls are full at six a.m.
who washes their car at six in the morning?
Rorschach loves my grief
it means she gets to walk twelve hours a day
at night when I return to my studio and take off my shoes
my toes have bled and scabbed to my socks
VII.
while Rorschach sniffs the foot of a tree
I try to understand the therapist’s suggestion:
Ask yourself what you need every half hour
and see if you can give yourself that
I need to call the dentist to fix the teeth I’ve shattered
in my sleep
I need to see if the flattened pigeon’s still in the gutter
I found it the first night I moved out of our house
and now I check on it daily like an old neighbor with
a bad hip
I understand how a bird could get hit by a car, but flattened
in its blissful pecking at a cigarette butt, it never felt
the dump truck reverse over its skull
two days ago, the sweeper flipped the flattened pigeon
from the gutter to the middle of the street
the tips of its wings fluttered like newspaper edges
each time a car ran over it
VIII.
this land of flatte
ned pigeons in Pompeii poses
wings upraised and trying to flap away from their bodies
two puffed-out pigeons seduce each other by dancing
and pecking the ground dangerously close to their
flattened brother
I pray they won’t begin to eat him
(urban pigeon myths depict such things)
I’m begging you not to do what you’re thinking,
I say to the young lovers
if my therapist were here I’d say,
I desperately need the in-love pigeons not to eat the flattened one
IX.
who will help me sweep up the puff of dust and plaster
that tumbles down inside me after each depression
every hammer swing sends pieces of drywall, scuttling
down my chest to settle in my hollow legs
I’ve become a walking urn of my own ashes
it doesn’t matter, worthy or unworthy depression
the ashes gather at the same winter rate
X.
Rorschach will be thirteen in a few weeks
I want to ask every stranger in the street,
What’s the oldest dog you ever knew?
it’s early and bright, the street apocalyptic in its emptiness
like a Sunday, but it’s not
Rorschach tugs to get a good sniff of the flattened pigeon
It’s real, I want to say
not a photographer’s pawn
dressed up in tatters, face streaked with soot
no makeup man lifting up those wings
pretending the edges of a last-minute escape
but no one needs to tell Rorschach what’s real
XI.
when she was two, I got Rorschach’s name tattooed
on my back
I accidentally insulted the tattoo artist
by double-checking it was spelled right
he wanted me to know he’d been tattooing for twenty years
I was less worried about him than the dyslexia of
consonants in her name
it was my second tattoo ever and when the needle dug
into my back
I felt a rush of electricity travel up my spine
XII.
do you know how a goodbye can make you curious?
suddenly there’s a million possible streets to explore
Rorschach leads me down a street draped in electrical wires
I follow, lost in thought, listening to the electricity popping
above me
my thoughts are:
Do goodbyes happen years before the actual goodbye?
my thoughts are:
Can leopards change their spots if you wait long enough for the leopard?
XIII.
I follow the crackling wires as far as they’ll lead me
it’s true I thought, if the wires fall and these pops turn
to sparks
we could lie down and feel them on our faces like rain drops
Rorschach was walking more directly under the wires
she would be the one to get it if they fell
did I mention I was trying walking meditation?
XIV.
the first time I meditated I saw a man
push the point of an ice pick into my sternum
next, in a Mexican restaurant at a friend’s Quaker wedding
I spent the first twenty minutes staring at a vent
wondering if a sniper was crouched in there
and if so, should I break the silence to warn the other guests
during the second twenty minutes, I worried I had Crohn’s
disease
XV.
Rorschach tugs toward the gutter
she wants to piss on the flattened pigeon
after a divorce, does everyone float like a lost balloon?
their head, a forest of rotting animals
we walk past the tire shop and I worry
about how I’ll cope when Rorschach’s gone
every couple blocks I lean over and smell her head
I used to say, When Rorschach goes, I go
but now I’m older
I’m older and she’s older
XVI.
to live with a dog is to have it become part of your body
the first time I was separated from Rorschach
I dropped her at a friend’s house the night before a flight
when I returned home to pack
the absence of her sounds was profound
no nails clicking across the floor
no tail thumping into a doorframe
even though she was only a year
I already knew which sounds would go when she was gone
to live with a dog is to grow old with a dog
this is how you lean over to help your blind dog down
the steps
this is how you lift your arthritic dog onto the bed
this is how you greet the deaf dog after work
look for her in every room until you find her asleep
then stand panicked in front of her until her chest moves
XVII.
my life changed the day I brought Rorschach home
three months old and tiny spotted legs
I put a blanket on the floor a few feet from my bed
she’d stay for a second then scuttle over to me
with her tiny puppy legs
each time I carried her back, I gave a half-hearted stay
immediately she returned to me
after five times I gave up
in the middle of the night I woke
to her suckling the bottom of my T-shirt
the whole reason we were doing this dance
was because everyone said,
Don’t let the dog sleep in the bed with you
you’ll never be able to discipline the dog after that
but the whole point of having a dog
is to let it sleep in the bed
XVIII.
I’d stop looking for dead things
if there’d stop being dead things everywhere
the last day of Crying Season it poured
Rorschach refused to go out in the rain
I walked through the park to the coffee shop
a black spot in the green grass caught my eye
a dead blackbird
I thought about moving or burying it
something besides leaving it unceremoniously there
then I saw another and another
big and small, their heads tilted to the side
ants crawled over their feathered crowns and eyes
the sheen of black feathers became undeniable through
the blades of grass
here it was, the summer of dead birds
XIX.
it’s impossible to not think apocalypse
when the ground is covered in dead birds
there were so many I wondered if I should
take one to prove they were real
a few blocks up I waited at a stoplight
next to a boy on a skateboard
I wanted to ask him to follow me
and show him the dead birds
but the light changed and he skated off
it felt creepy to ask and anyway
some kids can shrug their shoulders and say,
Oh well, the park’s filled with dead birds
but I was never that kind of kid
XX.
lately, Rorschach’s back legs give out midtrot
The Summer of Dead Birds Page 2
