Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for March 22, 2010


What of the lifetime wasted chasing haloes?
I look to my father who defers
how many years to gnaw
yourself loose when every atom
screams your passive plight?
While some are born roarers
the mice among us dream of reprieve
and sunny meadows, tissue-curtains
abillow, light and the sharp inhale
of spring willows. Coffee at my elbow
kink in my spine, a baby on my lap
singing today, tiny fingers clamped
to my sleeve. All I need to believe.
Silences pile like decorator pillows.
Forget just for today my mother said
who believes herself almost dead.
She's lost six pounds over the last week
though my sister and I guiltily doubt
her rush to fear and panic. My father
ignores her, won't buy Turner Classics.
What an end to life, a flight not gather.
Daffodils go translucent and scraggly
in their vase, the fancy goldfish
circles its bowl and three Chesapeake
retrievers jog off leash beside me
along a breezy roadway on the rez.
I have nothing new to say as my
mother reaps a harvest of metasticized
masses in lungs and ribs, her left eye
almost permanently fallen closed.