Breathe Louder into Silence
She insisted on living alone
unable to breathe without labor
attached to oxygen and feeding tubes
unable to walk without trembling
coughing the thick mucus in her hardened
lungs that turned against her
twice: first her lungs, then the donor’s lungs
and, gasping for air, she insisted on living
alone —
after drunken revelries, after work despite
the orders of doctors and common sense —
as a stagehand or playing with a band.
Singing, croaking, shouting, enraged
with lungs that belonged to a quiet woman,
who was patient, loved chocolate, and now, oddly,
my friend cursed a little less, licked chocolate,
but couldn’t chew — there was no appetite,
only startling emaciation of the cheeks, legs, arms.
And she insisted on living alone —
despite her parents pleas for hospice,
offers of their own sterile care,
and, yes, she was lonely; she said so;
I traveled for a dreamlike visit
We watched The Matrix, Rushmore, Behind the Music,
pontificating about alternate realities, childhood dreams
and the virtues of Henry Rollins.
She cursed cheerfully, coughing her subterranean
cough – and I flew back to LA, the final goodbye
except for a belabored phone call when she told me
the miracle.
Her greatest love returned.
That breakup was ugly, fueling her stubborn rage to live.
The woman had left her for a simple man,
leaving her with: foreign lungs, half-written songs,
false breath — and she insisted on living alone
— until the lover returned with knit sweaters, tears, caresses,
of mourning and elation, caresses of absolution and
of what could have been, and she heaved, asphyxiated,
gasping in those last caresses, yielding in her own bed,
her lover’s arms, no more gasping.