Darlings, I recorded a video for you yesterday but the wifi is not strong enough here for me to upload it. Hopefully in town next week I will get it to you. I am in a lovely nest of people surrounded by mountains. I’m always amazed at the families that take in and envelop others […]
heartwork
16
Work She does not want music today. Her voice is the sound of a tire deflating so slowly, it is almost inaudible over the hum of the machine. The machines – they have surrounded her since her sophomore year of high school to what would be her sophomore year of college. I have not yet […]
10/30
Your heart feels the most crowded when you are alone. After you hang up, the air is still saturated with her voice,her sorrow hanging over you like a cloud. You cannotstop breathing it. Intimacy is knowing exactly how someonefeels from hundreds of miles away. Agony is knowing howsomeone feels because you are hundreds of miles […]
2/30
Singing for the Patient with a Head Trauma Who Says “I Love You A Lot” Every Few Seconds 1. You think it is meant for someone else, even though you are alone with him. You must have misunderstood. 2. You meet his eyes and laugh, nervously, when he repeats himself. You are embarrassed, though no […]
On Resonating
I can’t think of where to start so I am starting in the middle and working out from there. Sometimes writing is throwing a pot. I have never cried in a patient’s room but my eyes were precariously close to spilling today. A 2-year-old girl with Down’s, her hair thinned and almost all gone, has […]
26/30, 27/30
I know I don’t owe anyone an explanation about the gaps in my 30-poems-in-30-days undertaking. But I want to give some context anyway, if nothing else then out of appreciation for those who have liked or reblogged or commented on my writing so far. It is comforting to feel less like shouting into a void, […]
These Funny Limbs
I stood in the doorway and asked him how he was doing. He said, “I think a part of me just died.” How is it that teenagers are so dramatic and so honest at the same time? “Why?” I asked. It could have been anything. Whatever it was that brought him back to the hospital […]