 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
Aline Soules
Aline Soules' work has appeared in journals,
e-zines, and anthologies such as The MacGuffin,
100 Words, Literature of the Expanding Frontier,
and Variations on the Ordinary. The Size of the
World is a "flip" book of poetry and short
fiction, co-published with Nancy Ryan's The Shape
of the Heart. Prose poems from her manuscript
Meditation on Woman have appeared in such
publications as Tattoo Highway, Poetry Midwest,
Long Story Short, the Newport Review, and the
Kenyon Review. Poems from her manuscript Evening
Sun have appeared in such publications as
Kaleidowhirl, Reed, and Shaking Like a Mountain.
Over
I need you to talk to me, I say,
as I look into your vacant eyes.
Your body struggles for breath.
I am talking to myself.
At the hospital, they hook you to IVs,
respirator, heart monitor, catheter.
Your leg jerks, the way
it did in your sleep.
They airlift you to another hospital,
but I know it doesn’t matter.
One moment we talked.
The next we couldn’t.
Measure of Love
In the instant you collapsed, I knew you’d left me,
but your heart kept pumping, lungs struggling
for breath, body flat out, length six feet one,
weight a hundred and thirty-five pounds.
In the hospital, they gave you a thirty-two-ounce drip
and forty-five breaths by respirator each minute
to keep your organs pink and healthy
until they could harvest them.
If I’d wanted, I could have counted
the number of doctors and nurses and interns and students
who streamed in and out of the emergency room
in the hours your body lay at the hospital.
I could have counted the people at your funeral service,
the hours and minutes it lasted, the tributes,
the memorials, the donations, the words and pictures
on the web site we created, but I didn’t.
What I know is this: your urn is two by two
by two, and your ashes are small enough to fit.
What I know is that you get smaller all the time,
further away day by day by measured day.
Place
What do you think of this one? Craig asks
about one plot, then another. What can I say
to our aching son?
I never imagined you sealed in an urn,
separated from earth and sea and air. I wanted
to scatter your ashes every place you’d lived,
find you wherever I went, know
that you’d be in the places we loved,
that even after death, you’d be part of
the same world as mine.
What makes our son want to seal you away,
to box and label you like our winter clothes?
Does he believe that anchoring the last trace
of your earthly life will heal the hole
in our hearts?
I need you to talk to me, I say,
as I look into your vacant eyes.
Your body struggles for breath.
I am talking to myself.
At the hospital, they hook you to IVs,
respirator, heart monitor, catheter.
Your leg jerks, the way
it did in your sleep.
They airlift you to another hospital,
but I know it doesn’t matter.
One moment we talked.
The next we couldn’t.
Measure of Love
In the instant you collapsed, I knew you’d left me,
but your heart kept pumping, lungs struggling
for breath, body flat out, length six feet one,
weight a hundred and thirty-five pounds.
In the hospital, they gave you a thirty-two-ounce drip
and forty-five breaths by respirator each minute
to keep your organs pink and healthy
until they could harvest them.
If I’d wanted, I could have counted
the number of doctors and nurses and interns and students
who streamed in and out of the emergency room
in the hours your body lay at the hospital.
I could have counted the people at your funeral service,
the hours and minutes it lasted, the tributes,
the memorials, the donations, the words and pictures
on the web site we created, but I didn’t.
What I know is this: your urn is two by two
by two, and your ashes are small enough to fit.
What I know is that you get smaller all the time,
further away day by day by measured day.
Place
What do you think of this one? Craig asks
about one plot, then another. What can I say
to our aching son?
I never imagined you sealed in an urn,
separated from earth and sea and air. I wanted
to scatter your ashes every place you’d lived,
find you wherever I went, know
that you’d be in the places we loved,
that even after death, you’d be part of
the same world as mine.
What makes our son want to seal you away,
to box and label you like our winter clothes?
Does he believe that anchoring the last trace
of your earthly life will heal the hole
in our hearts?
Aline Soules
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |