It’s 7AM
yet another morning
and still I wake
thinking of her
and us
and
me
So distant
spring light
slips cold
through the needles
of that ****** sticky pine
outside my window
invading
with dark illumination
a small rectangular space
of this world
called mine --
today.
In truth,
“Room 116” –
a cold reality I saw
in tarnished brass
last Christmas Day
when I peered beneath
the plastic nameplate
temporarily hung on the door.
“MR. SMITH’S”
that shiny sign barks
to separate more officially
this solitary shipwreck
from the loud living ocean
of widows without.
Waves of women working without,
a seamless sea of timeless rhythms --
pounding once-proud planks,
crushing rough beach stones to sand.
****
I sometimes ask that this door
stay shut
to save my tired eyes
from following
those widows with walkers
(so many widows with walkers!)
as they migrate their way down the hall.
Like flocks of grey geese
gently beckoned
they fly
toward mystical meetings
called “bingo,” or “quilting”--
inviolable appointments written
(or so I think)
on their dry wrinkled foreheads
by a loving invisible hand.
So yet another generation
of mankind’s best
shuffles blissfully toward
their eternal inheritance of one.
****
Though the door is now closed
I hear them
click shuffle shuffle click shuffle shuffle
gliding and gabbing sans men
past one
in
one sixteen.
But oh yes,
it’s Friday!
Soon Rachel will be here
to change my sheets
and touch me
gently
on the shoulder.
I don’t care if it’s
only good training
as long as she comes
with her smile
and her smells
and that magical left hand.
I won’t tell her that I know about
those cold historical digits
or ask her
(though I’d like to)
who hid them,
and when,
to name this room mine.
***
She’s a wife to a man
who will never know
that a cracked
lonely
shell
on the edge of the wall
lives
for his
wife’s touch
at a certain appointed hour.
He, he holds her full each night.
Sleeps by her side.
Calls her his own …
and she, his.
Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.
I can imagine her hastily changing
the plastic name on that door
before my sons brought me here
that sunny November day.
She was careful to be sure
I did not see
some other’s name,
and strives to permit man’s desired deception
of being the first
to rule this space
and to live for that touch.
Good wives are like that.
I had one once …
yes God,
I still remember …
how I’d lay in morning darkness
by her side
and listen to the music
of her rhythmic breath
close enough to smell her
sweet hair
as stray strands tickled my face.
I’d always feel an urge
to grab her hard right then
pull that wild hair tight behind
her beautiful, delicate ears
and kiss them brushingly
with the corner of my mouth.
But I loved her too much
to disturb her quiet sleep
with such noisy violence
so I’d try to be still
and patiently await her waking touch
knowing that it would come, and soon,
I focused like a terrier
on a treat held aloft.
Obediently waiting
my turn to be loved.
Today,
I sometimes fear
(or is it hope?)
that maybe she sees me here
pathetically pining for the touch of another.
It may be that she,
even from there,
can still read this living mind
of mine
as it now wonders who waits,
and for whom,
where,
and why?
Darling, can’t you hear me?
If so,
you know
that they’ve tried
to call me
a ‘widower’
ever since you left.
And you hear
how they struggle
with that unnatural ‘er’
which sticks
in their throats
like a cancerous growth
on the end
of a perfectly good word.
They know, and we do too,
that something is amiss
in this:
a man without a home,
a me without a you.
I’ve tried five years now
to fool myself
with pride.
I imagine it ordained from above
that I suffer
here in your place
to save you this pain.
It is a “nice thought,” isn’t it?
Sentimental ******* of course.
Honey, don’t deny that, please …
you know how the world goes.
Can’t you hear them now too?
click shuffle shuffle click shuffle shuffle
they are
talking, talking, talking
as they
click shuffle shuffle click shuffle shuffle.
And every single sound seems to me in order,
reminding of that unnatural ‘er.’
They are doing fine and
I
of course
am not.
Here, it’s late in the evening.
There, I do not know.
Perhaps I’ll see you!
Yet still, maybe not.
Regardless,
my love,
Goodnight.