12^th of Never

Talk to me of yesterday,
of things undone,
I still need you. Stay.
Please, just the way you were.

I remember the departure,
that October morning.
I always loved the autumn and could
scarcely await to go outside.
Our skates still here, the key to them lost.

I asked you out to breakfast, with Steve
you wouldn’t, couldn’t,
saying to me that
you didn’t feel well.
I looked around the room,
failing to notice you held
your chest in a discolored fist.

The doctor had explained
the pain away. Possibly pleurisy,
prescribed breathing treatments
and antibiotics which weren’t
kicking in. (not to mention my valiums).
With a niggling-naggling I went
to breakfast with my latest flirtation.
It was a striking day,
The 12th of never.

I welcomed the oily smells
of the greasy spoon, yellow eggs
and something to pass for meat.
I was lulled by the background chatter
of other patrons, whisk scraping bowl,
the awful in-between of a knife poised
to resize my portion of contentment.
Midbite, I sensed that descending
Blade, knew exactly where
it would sever. I lashed
the driver-sheik,
had him race that cool roadster
XKE, arriving too late.

I watched the paramedics try
to stun you back. You twisted,
jerked like a broken marionette.
"Clear!" they shouted again
and again, the only spike
when they applied the volts.
Otherwise, a flat line. You wouldn’t open
your baby blues.

They carried you on a gurney, covered you with a stiff sheet
(I grabbed your exposed toe to pray,
"God, please take me instead. He has two sons:
a daughter, another on the way."
Inadayinadayinaday),
ensconced you in that big white,
wheeled cube, screaming cherries on top.
The last hasty parade.

Once, people used to question
the tolling of the bells,
ancestors of our modern
rubber-necks, the technology changes,
sirens now, but still that morbid curiosity.

The ambulance left a pitiful wake,
flotsam, a handful of inquisitive neighbors,
your pregnant wife, the tributary
of tears I still leak when the days grow
longer every year.

I lived on, but nothing
mattered. I drank myself
insane. Maxed it out, body, mind,
waxed it old, made myself weary,
died, wanting to join you.

A new life stirred,
earsplitting to be born.

©Janet Caldwell 2002-2010