Linda A. Cronin
BECAUSE IT'S MINE*
There are days when I look in the mirror
and I hate what I see,
this clunker, this misshapen body that fails me time and again.
My face with its chipmunk cheeks and moon shape looms
over a neck that refuses to hold my head up high,
arms and legs that lack the muscle strength to get out of bed,
to dress myself and brush my hair, to climb the stairs.
Joints twisted and knotted,
the hollow bones crumbling
beneath the pressure of gravity, beneath my gaze.
I remember my fear when I woke from the last spine surgery,
unable to move, the respirator swallowing my pleas. You held my hand
and coaxed me through the terror. I fear there will come a day
when my body won't be strong enough
to keep fighting. When I won't wake up.
But you tell me, you see something I don't,
love this body I hate,
love my skin soft as feathers, my eyes the warm brown of chestnuts.
You tell me you see a woman with courage,
a body that fights its way through each day.
You tell me you love this body because it is mine.
There are days when I need
to believe I am
beautiful as my hands weaken and drop forkfuls of spaghetti on my lap,
as my legs stumble transferring me to a chair.
On those days I need to learn
to love my body just because it tries,
just because you do.
* * *
I refuse
to leave your bedside,
losing track of day and night in this world
where the lights are always on,
bells ring and machines beep and buzz
making it hard to hear the only sound
I care about, the sound of your breath.
I study your chest rising and falling under your green gown,
follow the line of the heart monitor,
each blip a triumph.
I listen for the nurses footfalls,
signaling yet another shot of morphine.
You always called me your angel,
but if I were an angel, I would want you to be free
of the un-ending needles, the intractable pain
that makes you clench your jaw
and cry out in your sleep?
I'm not ready
to lose you.
Each time your breath hesitates,
I hold my breath with you, at the edge
about to tumble over the waiting waterfall
to flail and claw at the rushing water,
to grasp at the mist
to reach for the rocks, the clouds
anything to put off the moment
I will drop into the bottomless pool of your absence.
*Previously published in Paterson Literary Review.
Linda A. Cronin is a poet, editor and freelance writer. Dream Bones
(WordTech Editions) is her first published collection of poems. She tied for first place in the 2014 Allen
Ginsberg Poetry Contest and has won Honorable Mention and Editor's Choice several years in the same contest.
Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in literary magazines such as The
Paterson Literary Review, Wordgathering, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, Rattle, and LIPS.
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