by max ritvo, from the final voicemails
you ask why the dinner table has been so quiet.
i've felt, for a month, like the table:
holding strange things in my head
when there are voices present.
and when the voices die,
a cool cloth and some sparkling spray.
i'm on painkillers around the clock,
and i fear it's always been
just the pain talking to you.
the last vision was of the pain leaving ---
it looked just like me as it came out
of my mouth, but it was holding a spatula.
it was me if i had learned to cook.
the pain drifted to the kitchen.
he hitched himself to the oven, was a centaur
completed by bread, great black loaves
bursting from the oven,
and then the vision vanished.
i followed, and stood where he had stood.
the knives rustled in the block,
the pans clacked overhead.
i'm sterile from chemo,
and thought of that.
sure, i wish my imagination well,
wherever it is. but now
i have sleep to fill. every night
i dream i have a bucket
and move clear water from a hole
to a clear ocean. a robot's voice barks,
this is sleep. this is sleep.
i'd drink the water, but i'm worried the next
night i'd regret it.
i might need every last drop. nobody will tell me.
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