- transcribed from my bed notebook.
It’s getting light. Another day. Opportunity. (word I can’t read, looks like ‘theat’) Retribution.
I need to pee. And see if the dog ran amok. Brush my teeth.
I think I’ll cook rice and beans today.
Take my pills. 9 in the morning. 2 at night.
Make a list on the facing page of Ramsey advice cum quotations.
Mark the Bible.
dollars
acres
books
small diamond ring
some old china
a wooden duck from Luana
a marriage that lasted how long?
It always bothers me that I cannot
remember the years people died
Pop’s especially.
I remember the years my parents died.
Mother in 1962, father in 1989.
I got married in 1965.
We moved back home in 1975.
I had breast cancer in 1993.
The factory closed in 2008.
My kids were born in 1967 and 1970.
After my heart sugery
During my delirium
They kept asking me
Over and over
Who and where and why
I knew I was at Gundersen
and why
But I could not remember the year.
I felt a failure
and I wished I’d worked
Harder to remember ----------------
what year it was.
I so wanted to succeed
To get out of those odd rooms
the ones with test windows
and yellow paint.
I’ve always wanted to be smart. To be able to think and know things
And be able to find my way out of pepper bags. To find the exit.
To know the way - to - from.
To lie in my bed and hear the furnace start.
To finish two Gazette crosswords.
To absorb the day
And to be absorbed by it.
Loading comments...