Poppies

I got the news in summer,

That you were going to need a more

“Hands on”

Approach to caretaking.

I shrugged at my mother’s repeated promises

That I would just be temporary,

And that they were hunting new men

Georgia strong and able

To take over.

Three years of hauling sheets to dryers every morning,

Of shaking hands on pink rags,

Wiping food from your mouth

And trying not to heave

When you asked me questions

About the life I didn’t have anymore.

I talked about friends.

Of course they got to live their stories,

Meeting women and dancing in moonlight

While I struggled to uncake the motors

Of your wheelchair from the urine that leaked

From your catheter.

I talked about jobs I would have,

When the men came,

And the people I would wow

With my stunning colloquialisms

And frenzied diction.

I sang of music I’d write

The guitar leaning against the wall

Covered in cobwebs from the dust

That stuck under my nails when I flipped you

In the morning.

You see more than I want.

I know the guilt that crams into your gullet

Like a pelican trying to swallow itself.

I am not happy here.

I am not growing as I should

And the things I do for you,

They cast me in an iron box,

Sealed and heated until I roast

Deliciously

Into paste.

Sometimes,

At night,

Now that men have come and gone in the day

I whisper words to your slumbering form

And express the loss that I have made.

I count on your breathing,

Uneven and cacophonic,

To cover the sound

Of two unsalted tears

Landing in your beard.

And in the night

When I share these feelings

I sit alone

And think of poppies

Blown away by summer air.

And that’s okay, too.