We left behind our borrowed scrubs
and thank-you notes for the surgeons
and something else, something I
should know but can’t remember,
some intimacy, some former idea
of the body as — no, it was not
the body, ever, but a different kind
of haven. We left it behind. Or it
never existed. Look, there’s no point
in not asking: Did we escape,
or didn’t we? I think about this
constantly. In the kitchen I push
on a loaf and it yields and yields
and the yeast are exhaling their
death-breaths into the flour.
I don’t know how to make bread.
I don’t know who lived and who
made it home. Instead,
I cook him plums. He’s just started
to eat soft fruit. They told me to
strip the purple skin, flappy
on the flesh, but when I do
it recalls the viscera of sunrise,
yellow pink pulp deliquescing
over the rooftops, the helicopter pad,
the peace garden, that useless
pile of weeds. One botanical use
of deliquesce is to form many small
branches. In which universe
are we living now? The one
where he lived, the one
where he died, the one
where I die, the one
where we all live
and eat plums together.
Whose child am I feeding?
Whose hands are disemboweling
plums? He flips the spoon
and dumps it, grins at me.
Will we pay for it later, like a bad movie
about a deal with the devil where
we think we got what we wanted?
Scar tissue, or a petal puckering under rain.
Hail. It gets harder. He may be fine. Don’t
and thank-you notes for the surgeons
and something else, something I
should know but can’t remember,
some intimacy, some former idea
of the body as — no, it was not
the body, ever, but a different kind
of haven. We left it behind. Or it
never existed. Look, there’s no point
in not asking: Did we escape,
or didn’t we? I think about this
constantly. In the kitchen I push
on a loaf and it yields and yields
and the yeast are exhaling their
death-breaths into the flour.
I don’t know how to make bread.
I don’t know who lived and who
made it home. Instead,
I cook him plums. He’s just started
to eat soft fruit. They told me to
strip the purple skin, flappy
on the flesh, but when I do
it recalls the viscera of sunrise,
yellow pink pulp deliquescing
over the rooftops, the helicopter pad,
the peace garden, that useless
pile of weeds. One botanical use
of deliquesce is to form many small
branches. In which universe
are we living now? The one
where he lived, the one
where he died, the one
where I die, the one
where we all live
and eat plums together.
Whose child am I feeding?
Whose hands are disemboweling
plums? He flips the spoon
and dumps it, grins at me.
Will we pay for it later, like a bad movie
about a deal with the devil where
we think we got what we wanted?
Scar tissue, or a petal puckering under rain.
Hail. It gets harder. He may be fine. Don’t
doubt. (But I do not trust him
to inhabit his own body.) Let the icy
fists unclench a little. Beware
pared fingernails on the floor,
their unexpected edges.
I used to be a person who let things
go, who saw gardens mostly as
adjectives: wild or abundant.
Now I see verbs: rot, root, sprout.
A host of possible becomings
gnawed back by caterpillars
and cabbage moths. What happened
to the tulips? They bled out in vases,
their milky green throats snipped
and draining into a cup. Oh severed
ends. The scrubs lying in a pile
on the hospital floor. Tell me, please
tell me, if I made it out alive.
What version of the movie
is our life? His lungs
like dead moth’s wings.
Heart clenching its beats
like a clam clutching
seawater. Leaky
fist. Pushing it out, the salt,
the hurt, if he died I would fall
and fall and fall. And yet
he laughs as I cut away
the soft parts of fruit,
the bruises, the narrow
tear-shaped seeds. He opens
his mouth like a boy, this creature
who came home with us.
to inhabit his own body.) Let the icy
fists unclench a little. Beware
pared fingernails on the floor,
their unexpected edges.
I used to be a person who let things
go, who saw gardens mostly as
adjectives: wild or abundant.
Now I see verbs: rot, root, sprout.
A host of possible becomings
gnawed back by caterpillars
and cabbage moths. What happened
to the tulips? They bled out in vases,
their milky green throats snipped
and draining into a cup. Oh severed
ends. The scrubs lying in a pile
on the hospital floor. Tell me, please
tell me, if I made it out alive.
What version of the movie
is our life? His lungs
like dead moth’s wings.
Heart clenching its beats
like a clam clutching
seawater. Leaky
fist. Pushing it out, the salt,
the hurt, if he died I would fall
and fall and fall. And yet
he laughs as I cut away
the soft parts of fruit,
the bruises, the narrow
tear-shaped seeds. He opens
his mouth like a boy, this creature
who came home with us.
Image: photo by Chris Buckwald on Unsplash, licensed under CC 2.0.
Caitlin Dwyer is an essayist and poet. She has studied writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop and the University of Hong Kong. When not writing, she produces podcasts with Many Roads to Here and teaches at Portland Community College in Oregon. Learn more about her work at www.caitlindwyer.com.
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