Numb

Irene woke me up and said she couldn’t feel her head.
It was numb, she said.
I asked if this was everywhere on her head
and she said no, it was only here,
gestured to the area between her eyes with
the thumb and index finger.

She said it feels like Novocaine. The heavy
minutes before Novacaine sets in.

We sat up in our bed for a few minutes. The
dark of our bed. Faintly
I could see dresses moving in the closet
pushed by the ceiling fan. I lay on my belly,
trying not to sleep. This was also when
I found out it was raining.

The cat must have known
because she was there on the bed in less
than a minute. I pushed her off, apologizing.
How are you? I said.
She said the feeling had traveled to her legs.
I’m scared. She said.
I asked if we should go to the emergency room.
She said no, let’s just wait here a while.
Then Irene didn’t talk. I touched her
bare back and hair. I touched her foot. Can
you feel that? I said.
She said I’m not sure.

The cat jumped back on the bed. Vines
touched the glass. Was it still raining? I could not tell. I
remembered what
you said about a premonition.
Something like, you’d die tragically, which meant
you’d die young. You just knew it.

Do you think I have MS? She asked and I
didn’t know what to say to that so I just said
I doubted it, the onset seemed too early.
What would I do
if I had to live in a wheelchair
was the question Irene asked me when we heard it:

The sound of an airplane, low, loud. Lasted
what seemed
like a matter of many minutes. We looked
up. The cat looked up. We all watched
the blank ceiling, the moving shadows of trees. Blades
of light.
Dresses still swaying slightly over there. All
the night happenings. Must
have changed the patterns, Irene said, due
to the weather and I agreed. They don’t
fly this close. Ever. Waited as the plane droned
gone. What would I do
if she died tragically, and young, I wondered.

Part of me thinks I’d be alone
for the rest of my life, as alone
as I could be.
Just rendering the useful seconds off of life
best I could, off of each day without her. Thinking
how Irene danced to most
every music, and danced well. A capable,
very capable woman.

The Sound

As she moves somewhat
unconsciously
on her side of the bed. Under
the covers. Mouth open,
letting out the stale, noxious air
of a few years. A few bad memories.
Gotta do that every now and then...

My God,
it’s the only thing in the room.

Here we are. The ivy uncoils
from its winter fist
and seems to reach for us. Silently touches
the windows like long widow’s fingers.
There is no wind tonight. Not even
night birds. Or action
in the apartments above or below.
It really is quiet here. Quiet
like I don’t remember.
Not even traffic. Not even a
clock’s tick. Or the radiator clank. That’s
been long since turned off.
The boilers and machinery that bravely
keep us alive. Not even the sand
of dreams shifting in its bowl.
Or a dog’s collar shaking, or a banana
ripening to black. Not even that.
Not even the photos as they mutter
in their albums, or the dead as they mutter
in their graves. But
just now, the faded sound of her breathing
as she settles in, finally, to some peaceful
form of sleep. And I am alone, sitting
up in bed like a man in a hospital
waiting for the nurse to bring
breakfast at 6 AM.

The Smoke Alarm

I was just starting to fry a porkchop when it went off.
I sprung into action. Calm, direct. Pushed the window open
far as it would go and got to fanning the thing with a dishtowel, as
I’d done before, as I’d seen done.

She was on the sofa watching television. Her white legs
folded over one another. Make
it stop, she said. Just then, the alarm in the bedroom
went off too. Two alarms blaring in discord, rarely
meeting.

I flew in waving the towel, leaving the first. It did not have
the desired effect I’m afraid.
There was an unmarked button on the device which I then pressed
mercilessly with my thumb.
Pushed till it was red. Did the same to the
alarm in the living room. Nothing. Tried pushing
in different sequences. Holding it. Double pushing it. She went
to pee. When she came out said, There’s
still smoke in here, covering her ears. What
Don’t you understand about this?
Get rid of it!

It was the day before she’d brought home her herbs.
Basil. Lavender. Mint. Thyme. Growing in pots
along the windowsill. Delicate green. She said we’d use them fresh
in whatever it was we cooked
from now on. We should start eating fresh things, she explained.
I swung the pan around, still crackling, to get water on it
and sure enough, knocked one pot to the floor.
Basil I think. It broke and spread, dirt and pieces
of the pot. The plant’s tiny roots.
She shook her head but didn’t look at me. Simply rose
up off the couch and approached the first alarm. Started
some waving of her own with a couch cushion. She waved and flapped
the cushion madly, almost with violence.
The alarms seemed to get louder.

I went to the bedroom and unscrewed the alarm from the ceiling.
It came off easily enough, but stayed attached by a few wires. I located
the battery slot. It did not slide open so I broke the plastic and
removed the battery. Still, the alarm persisted. The
battery in one hand, the loose alarm swinging there
out of the hole in the ceiling. How
was it possible? They must be attached, I said, somewhere above us.
Turn it off, she said again.
I then told her
I didn’t know how to turn it off but she said for me to figure it out.
The alarm looked like a human eye extracted from its socket,
still strung to nerve and muscle tissue. I was in a mind
to smash it. I searched for things to do it with. A shoe. The
iron. This somehow seemed less destructive than the two of us
going through this together. Maybe I’d cut the wire. Would it
electrocute me? Then we wouldn’t have a smoke alarm, and that
would not be good. She dropped the pillow on the floor
and said, I can’t take it anymore. She
retreated to the couch and folded up.

This comment stunned me. First
for its absurdity. Can’t take it. Then for its truth. I knew
what she meant. I
couldn’t take it anymore either. The sound. It seemed
possible that the smoke alarms would never stop
for us.
And we’d wait in there while they made us deaf and
crazy. We’d get into our bed with the smoke alarms
beeping like that, and we’d drift off into pained sleep hearing them,
first in wakefulness and then in queer dreams.
And either we wouldn’t wake up, or one of us
would be gone altogether when the other did. The
one waking, waking deranged. This appeared,
in my fresh desperation, an entirely plausible future.
A simple continuation.

I’m sorry, I said from the other room, about the basil.
That was never basil, she replied.
Through her hands, barely over the din.

Who Is It?

Yes, the question seems reasonable
as I say it out loud to no one.
The radiator does not answer.
The cat does not answer. The half
eaten plate of food does not.
And the birds chirp. Reacting
to something inside that tells them to chirp.
And how am I different? With my
observations and speech and words of thought?
Who talks to me. Who tells me I’ve been
ordained as this. This entity. It is a rumor
that’s been passed down, person to person.
Human to human.
I sit back, delirious in the silence.
The sounds of neighbors who do not know
I listen. For that which I have endured derision.
The distilled state of quiet thinking. Where relatives,
some dead, suddenly appear
through the half moth-
eaten silk. In the newspaper, in the kitchen window.
I recall them and see. Introduce
myself. Walk forward looking at my own reflection
in a hand mirror.

The Mountain

The purpose of the trip was to ski. But since I did not ski,
never have, I wasn’t going for that. I went for another
reason.
So when they went out for the day, I was on my own.
First I simply stood there and waited. Looked at their
shoes or the other things they’d left behind. The remnants
of breakfast in the sink. We’d just eaten eggs and toast
we’d found in the pantry of this house. I
listened to their sounds and voices dip into silence.
Out into the outside, the cars, the trees. We were
nearer to Canada.
It was a brilliant winter day. The sun
blasting in the windows off of the snow. I sat down
on the sofa. Got comfortable. Crossed my feet
over one another. Experienced some amount of time, I
don’t know how much. Occasionally, I’d see heads
of skiers glide past the windows. Adults, then just the
tops of the hats or hair of their children. Some sort of back path
through the trees. I’m going to do this all day, I told myself.
I made coffee, read a bit. Went into
all of the rooms of the house. Each bedroom, the bathrooms,
the room with the washing machine and dryer.
Returned to the living room. Then I stopped
trying to occupy myself altogether.
Waited for something to happen. Some sensation
that would inform my next move. This never
happens, I thought. This is never
allowed to happen. The basic act of listening
to one’s mind, moving at its natural pace. Unscheduled,
uninfluenced. Nowhere was that familiar sense
of planning. This and then that. Two hours for this. Followed
by one hour of something else. The imposition
of the things you’ve chosen to love. The dividing up
of great masses. The crisis of boredom. It didn’t exist
for me. I don’t even remember what I thought about,
if I reached any conclusions or clarity about anything. More so,
I remember the pleasure of doing it. Of relenting.
I realized I had to go to the bathroom.
I went in and did it. Turned off the light and emerged. Still,
no one was there. They were skiing, and I had peed.
I waited for something else. I decided to do it
in a wooden rocking chair near one of the windows.
Took my place and looked out. Saw the skiers closer
now. The pairs, families, in their skiing outfits. Gear I
knew nothing about. Didn’t really understand. One or two
went by alone. One without poles altogether. Gliding
along the path, the most obscure movements to steer, grace
in a body.
Eventually, I got hungry. There wasn’t anything
else in the kitchen so I had to leave.
Got in my car and drove down the mountain.
Went into town. There were two
gas stations and a general store. Once inside
the general store, I saw they had a food counter.
I sat down on a stool and ordered beef stew, along with
a ham and cheese sandwich. The beef stew was very
salty, but good. A woman in a hunting cap
made my sandwich very slowly, methodically.
I watched as two families of skiers
undressed themselves at their tables then ordered
huge breakfasts. Their faces red
and most of them fairly fat. Pancakes, eggs to order,
hash browns and so forth. They spoke with
French accents. The griddle full of their food. End to end.
I bought a piggy bank for my girlfriend, a six pack of beer
and left. Went back up the mountain. When I arrived, again,
the house was empty. It was as if I’d never left, or never
been there in the first place. The lamp
still on like I had left it. The bathroom door in the same position.
I closed the door and put the
beer in the refrigerator, save one. Sat in the rocking chair
and drank it. A few more skiers passed. It was getting a bit
darker then. But not too dark to ski. The trees were straight and
branchless. They did not move. I waited.
Finished the beer and allowed it to become
evening around me. Some time
around then they returned. They were tired
and damp. They took off their hats and their
hair stuck to their foreheads. They seemed very
happy, pleased with what they’d done. How they’d
spent the day. They claimed
it had been a good one for skiing. Ideal,
though I can’t say for sure what’s ideal. They asked me
what I’d done and I described it best I could, filling in some
spans of time that seemed impossibly long. I realized
as I spoke to them, as they filled in the living room and started
logs crackling in the fireplace, that I was both ready for them to be back
but also nowhere near ready.