The cold steel ducked beneath his skin as if to hide from the news. Feelin’ blue, she sits by the phone, leavin’ home he told her he’d do it alone. The doctor’s voice doesn’t crack with the smack of the word cancer, jaded breath still flowing, in and out, bada-beat bada-beat, his heart throbs sound, doesn’t pound like the sound of her baby’s.
The talk of the clock hits hard as a rock, every tick that it tocks makes her heart wanna stop as she sits absent-minded, alone. The phone sings, her mind rings…hello?
More tests, let it rest, with quickened breath, she protests, there’s no way that this could be true. He cries on the phone, feeling sick, and blue.
Bald is beautiful, especially on babies, and him. He says to she says and she says to he that when waters get rough, you just have to swim, both silently fearing his body won’t win, while calm doctors measure the life in his blood, count cells—red, white, and indifferent…
Her bare knees hit the porch, scrape raw against splintered hardwood, paint ragged and weathered—it peels to reveal the rough interior, while above rainclouds grumble and growl.
The owl takes flight
each night to hunt the blue jay,
who still manages
to sing
to sing
somehow.
