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Show Go Love/176 "Where the truck rolled up hill" "There's this aspen grove up on a hilltop I drove through oncet. Somebody's carved these tree burls into pussy-shaped things that leak red sap. Like a woman on her period. They look like the real deal Weirdest things you've ever seen, woodpussies." Inside, the closet door's broken, and the clothes rod's collapsed; all her clothes are piled in a heap like they've died too. I draw the blind so bright light comes in through the dirty glass Tough Man has shit three times on the window side of the bed where I step, dust from the ceiling fan filtering down. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is half eaten on the night stand Her bed and every other available surface in the room is loaded with hospital bills and prescriptions and insurance papers and letters from Washington, D.C., The Democratic National Convention, knickknacks from Las Vegas casinos and empty picture frames, tax records and romance novels, pagemarked with pictures of Lara, an old mother's day card, the program from Aunt Peg's funeral, the room is noisy with Mama's perpetual effort to drive away chaos while creating all the more. She wasn't planning on dying-that much is for sure. Calendars flap open on the bed, dresser and floor Blue Cloud, our fourth of July vacation is marked in big red letters, as well as dates for the rest of the month and year-everybody's birthdays and Christmas gift ideas On the date when one of Jimmy's friends died is printed a reminder to send the parents a note: we never lose the ones we love, we keep them in our hearts. A list of phone numbers with my name, Renee and Lara, a big heart drawn around us. Christmas cards and dirty socks in the mix, orange wedges and chewing gum wrappers-this is what it's like to be sick How she could think at all with all this is a miracle. |
