...and I’m flooded with
the I have to die.
-Alice Notley
She is so brilliant she makes it seem
maybe okay and beautiful. Many poets
try this. Some succeed. I never wanted
to put my head into an oven. Honestly.
But isn’t joy of life and fear of death
kind of oxymoronish?
I am drinking lemon tea. There.
I’m sitting in a cubicle avoiding work.
Avoiding death. And then,
bam!
Every working member
of my immediate family is in the
healthcare field. My brother has
terribly high blood pressure yet
refuses to take pills for it.
He saves lives in Paris,
Arkansas. If I could cry
it would be for lack of ability to write a poem like hers.
I like a good story. I wish I could tell you one.
Last night I dreamt something. And when I woke up,
well, you probably guessed it. I couldn’t remember a thing.
Except that I was in there.
She gets up from her chair, bends over,
stretches her back, fresh from surgery. This is my mother,
not Alice Notley. It’s not that I get confused,
it’s just that maybe I need a diversion. From death.
From narrativity.
