The Widow Interim

By: Kath Richards


                             photo attributed to: Conner Cushman

A metronome outside his skin, like he wears on his person

the grandfather clock from his grandfather’s home. Between his lungs,

the dacron droning of muscle pumping the piece of poly-carbon

which will play valve so long as his heart will have it.

Tonight the snapping thrum lulls me to a sleep, one where I know he is alive and in this

he is no longer as he once was, cooled to half-a-hundred degrees, purple and blue-red

insides on display for a committee of qualified crows picking apart

and putting together his still-live cadaver. Did he exist at all

with his heart unthumping, sliced and sutured and knitted with bits of radiator hose while

my nails carved crescents into palms in the little-lobby half-heartedly playing cards, stomaching

a tuna-fish sandwich—banana peppers, pickles, and mayo on wheat pleasethankyou—

did he exist then at all? In the hours between we’ll take good care of him and

come on back, like the cat in the box, it was like he was alive and dead both.

 

Comments

Unknown said…
I have chills!! Wow. These words are delicious. I want to read more and more of this stuff!!
Unknown said…
I love reading something that makes me FEEL. Really tugged on my heart strings!

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