Survival Diptych
1.
One year anniversary
Nothing
graspable. Rather the sift of fine sand
over
all: bedclothes, book jackets, mirrors.
A
slight grit in food, haze on the steps.
I
had thought my adversary would appear
outright,
wrestle me like angel and fool,
but
day after day I gaze dumbly
at
our windy black walnut sweeping and plunging
yet
going nowhere. Just suffering in place.
Turns
out I can't wait and weep both,
can't
make diagnosis any sort of solution.
2.
Contentment
Not,
as I had dreamed, the flush of wine
or
heat of bed. No electric plunge
of
sled down icy hill. Rather
the
sleeping breath of a walked dog
curled
now at my feet. Merely the sound
of
my wife humming in the bathroom
her
pre-work arias. A moment
unaccountably
crystalline, winter edging
the
panes, and even the fact of cancer
just
a fact this blazing day.