HEART OF THE GROVE
The last time we walked this dirt road
I showed you the spirit of aspen grove,
an owl carved high on a scarred
white trunk – who knows how it came
there, who etched the image?
Basque sheepherder? cowboy standing
in his stirrups to reach so high?
An easy walk for us, though the grove
was charred at its edges by wildfire
two years before, leaving dead trees
fallen here and there. You and I
ate our peanut butter sandwiches
in whispering shade of aspen, among
so many carvings – a woodpecker,
travelers’ dates, initials + hearts. Today
I’m alone here with my dog; you
stay at home, prisoner of pinched nerves
in your neck. The green bar-gate across
roadhead has been smashed almost
to the ground, a dead aspen blocks
dirt road by the snowmelt creek.
I’ll tell you the owl’s still on his tree,
brain and heart of the grove.
Taylor Graham
OUR LAST COMMUNION
The last time that I saw him
He lay upon a hospital bed,
Strapped down and thrashing to and fro.
But when he heard my voice, he slowed
And paused to listen as the words
Within his brain were registered.
Relaxing in relief, he smiled
For that one moment, when he knew his child.
He chuckled then with pleasure--
A greeting I would one day treasure.
The white cells in his bloodstream gnawed
Each other, and the virus spawned
Where there was no immunity:
It sapped his store of memories,
Until my image blurred and flowed
Away and he relapsed into his throes.
But over forty years loom
From then till now, and we still commune--
At least I do. What if the dead
Were not so smitten with their friends
And family as we might be
With them? We, who need memory
To make it all cohere; while they
Must clear their minds to live beyond the grave.
Lee Evans
KÖLN
The last time I
saw her was in
Cologne four
years ago. That
would be our last
party together. Not
sure how I even
got there. I thought
I’d reuse an old
costume, cover
my face in sparkle.
Not drink. I had
been recovering
from a wound.
There was so
much noise and
broken glass and
predators in sheep’s
clothes. People
from around the
world were loose.
It was carnival.
Lee Burke González
THE LAST TIME
The last time I heard that song by the Rolling Stones
I was 19, living in a dormitory, dating a senior.
It was the end of spring semester.
He was thinking graduation. I was thinking breakup.
I told you once and I told you twice
But you never listen to my advice
Standing at my room’s door, we were talking
about our futures – a subject as unclear
as some poetry I was studying in a course.
I thought
this could be the last time
Maybe the last time. I don't know.
Today, I hear Taylor Swift singing
This is the last time I'm asking you this
This is the last time I'm asking you why
It is August. I am alone in my room
preparing to teach for the new semester.
No one is standing at my door talking.
No one to break up with today,
But no last time is really the last time.
Lily Hana Hayashi
THE PAPER FORTUNE TELLER
The last time she touched my hand
she was reaching for something
else. She felt through her backpack
to find the paper fortune teller
she had folded on the train
that connected the home of
her marriage to where she lived
a separate life of work,
a roommate and a lover.
Each origami corner
was inscribed with a winking
innuendo and with each
random number I called out
she made the boxes wriggle
with those same glancing fingers.
Anticipation grew with
each revelation, with each
hint and playful allusion
to what would never happen,
to what could never happen.
Rob Friedman
THE LAST TIME I ATE MEAT
The last time I ate meat was thirty years ago.
It was a Spam Musubi at the Pearl Country Club
On Oahu. I bought it from the girl who drives a cart
Around the golf course, selling snacks and mostly beer
To the golfers. In case you’ve never eaten Hawaii’s favorite
Snack, it’s a slice of Spam, right out of the can, on top
Of a rectangle of sticky rice, shaped to fit, then neatly
Wrapped in a sheet of toasted seaweed. Perfect
Finger food. I could taste that salty, smoky, mystery
Meat flavor afterwards for three days of spammy burps.
People ask me all the time why I don’t eat meat,
Expecting, perhaps, to start some kind of political
Dialogue, pointing out what a hypocrite I am
For eating fish, but I don’t have a good answer.
And I don’t want to start a lecture on how drastically
Out of balance the food chain is and how much healthier,
Simpler and cheaper it is to eat a plant-based diet.
I’m just one old lady, and I can’t combat the monstrous
World of agribusiness and all the ads for greasy fast food.
Sometimes I’ve wondered how many pigs, cows,
Chickens and sweet little calves still drinking their
Mothers’ milk didn’t have to die during the past thirty
Years because I didn’t eat them. Probably not many.
And when I think of all the chickens, in those windowless
Prisons in Arkansas, hidden away from the highway,
Where their feet never touch the ground and they’re
Packed in so closely they can’t even begin to flap
Their wings, I wonder if this is what “dominion over the
Birds of the sky” is supposed to mean.
Chickens in their scarlet and gold glory used to wander around the
Farmyard, waking everybody up with cock-a-doodle-doo,
Eating cracked corn and laying eggs.
Then after a while, Grandma would grab a couple of them,
Wring their necks, pluck off the feathers on the back porch
And cook them up with dumplings for Sunday dinner.
That seems almost civilized.
Rose Anna Higashi
A NEW NORMAL
The last time Death came calling
It took me by surprise
Blood work, scales and P.T.
All indicated I was doing fine
Five days in the ICU proved otherwise
I'd come down with pneumonia, a U.T.I.
And other complications
Requiring further tests and new medications
Four months later, I am on the mend
Once again, the blood work is OK
But those complications haven't gone away
I'm living with additional restrictions
And yet, I have reasons to be grateful
At the moment, I am considered a survivor
Not walking with a cane, not in any pain
In better health than many people half my age
The difference is that, once you have been diagnosed
Cancer is then part of your reality -- the risk of relapse
Often on your mind, even when you're feeling well
No need to dwell on this, but good to be prepared
Death will, no doubt, call again, to take my measure
Decide whether it is worth the time to linger or move on
The next time needn't be the last -- no reason to believe it will
Still, my self-protective brain will do its best to cause me to forget
The (hairy, scary, seemingly unnecessary) last time
Frank Kelly
GEMINI’S CHILD
For Debbie (1952-2020): R.I.P
Four years ago and a semester, you’d proven doctors
who pronounced you only had five dozen weeks to live wrong
celebrated the third anniversary of their bogus diagnosis;
physicians, lawyers,
surgeons gave autumn advice
lifeforce pied pipers
Four years ago and a month, the last time you came to visit
we chased whales on sandy banks of the Salish Sea
ignored veering winds that blew against the Space Needle;
chemotherapy
like an Albatross curse hung
future prospects nil
Four years ago and a fortnight, you slept outdoors
absorbed the strength of a flickering cosmos,
cradled an iPhone, spoke to friends and family about release;
night swallowed daylight
waning moonshine shed glitter
ancestral pathway
=
Four years ago and a day, I heard of your passing
while the Covid pandemic raged and wildfires blazed,
death’s doldrums hovered over your last gasp lips;
word castanets shook
Chiron’s River Styx craft cruised
the sun never rose
Sterling Warner
DUODENUM JEJUNUM ILEUM
I want to say something about BMs
because BM is what I said
when I was very young and I haven’t said it
in a really long time and I think I only said it because
my mother said it and I guess she said it because
that was the initialism back then
that parents used for talking about bowel movements
with their children who didn’t know what a bowel
or a bowel movement was but needed a way to talk about it
I still like to talk about it
but I don’t say BM anymore
in fact the last time I said BM was probably
around the time I stopped talking to my mother
about BMs and started talking about them with my friends
who were probably the ones who taught me how to say
I have to take a shit a crap a dump
I have never said defecate in my life
I used to say poop when my own kids were young
I guess by then BM had fallen out of favor
and to my daughter who is Deaf I said
thumb-of-right-open-A-handshape-inserted-
into-left-S-handshape-and-extracted-downward
which is everybody’s favorite sign
who doesn’t know sign language
and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my father
who grew up in Czechoslovakia
and didn’t speak English all that well
he died of colon cancer when I was a kid
I was still calling him Daddy and still saying BM
though I don’t remember talking about BMs
with my father who could no longer make BMs—
by then he would only go to the bathroom
when it was time to empty his colostomy bag—
but I do remember hearing him say
hovno
on the other side of the bathroom door—
hovno is shit in Czech—muttering it to himself
as he fumbled with the bag
and maybe got some shit on his hands
trying to empty it into the toilet bowl
There are no words for this he said to my mother
referring to the mutilated remnant of his life
after he’d gotten out of the hospital
and before he went back in to die
he also said
hovno when he dropped things
like the long wooden spoon he used for stirring
the thick Czech soups he liked to cook for me and my mother
I never liked those soups but I always liked
hearing him say shit in Czech
which was probably around the time
I started saying it myself in English
Paul Hostovsky
THE LAST TIME
I took a walk
through the woods
before the leaves fell
for the last time.
I heard them
glistening and shaking
getting ready
to fall.
It’s the season for it
after all.
I saw the light shining
on the leaves of grass
getting ready
to push soft spikes
in between the fallen,
saw the light
shining
through the trees
lighting up the white crosses
chalked on the trunks
crosses lined up
as in the fields of a cemetery
after that war to end wars.
Too many white crosses
ready now
to mark the graves
of those about to fall.
It’s the season for it
after all.
It’s always the season for it,
we’ll wait forever for that last time.
Lynn White
THE LAST TIME
The last time I held your hand
Could have been today
Had I been brave enough
to reach out
and feel the cold.
But I wasn’t
And now you’re gone
Were they careful when they carried you away?
Respectful?
Was there honor and reverence at the privilege
Of bearing the bones
Of so great a man
On his one last journey?
One last car ride.
One final trip.
From my quiet corner
I watched the birth kids hold
the cold hand.
And kiss the cold, yellowed brow.
And brush the full head of magnificent hair.
One last time.
One last sob.
One more deep, guttural groan of grief.
I stood silent in the corner
Willing myself to watch in wonder
In spite of your breathless chest
And your ever-smiling eyes
Shut tight.
No furrow in the 90-year brow
At all
Anymore
(What do you now know that we don’t?)
I, the one who came to this family late.
Taking his name… your name.
In law.
What a phrase.
So transactional.
It could never capture what it is to love a man
And then be invited into his family.
Loved like a daughter.
But not quite.
Of course, not quite
the same.
Not really the same at all
as the one who is bone of your bones.
Flesh of your flesh.
The perfect reflection of the perfect one you chose
all those years ago.
Who departed all those years ago
And left you with her mirror image
growing up
before your eyes.
You loved me the best you could
As the one who stole your son
Then made him a father.
And you a grandfather
And then a great-grandfather
I loved you deeply.
Fiercely.
And with not a little frustration, at times.
Just like you loved me.
I wanted the last time I held your hand
to be when it was warm.
Gnarled, curled fingers
Wrapped around mine
Squeezing a thank you you could no longer speak
That’s the hand I will remember.
And the one that reached out into the air
Grasping for things unseen.
Trapped between two worlds
And ready to go
I don’t know who I was that day
When you reached out and buried your hand in her hair
And caressed her head with such tenderness
But I will remember that hand
Buried against my cheek
And weep
Laurie Sitterding
YOU’RE STILL THE ONE
who breaks out in song though you only remember
a phrase or two, and you’re still the one who riffs
the opening verse of "House of the Rising Sun"
on the guitar that’s been part of the basement décor
for over fifty years. You still retain your beautiful
square shoulders where your girl’s head has fit perfectly
for five decades, though the blade these days is sharper
and more prominent. You still get your thrill
from the antics of Carol Burnett and Tim Conway,
and like them, you are not afraid to be silly, like
when you made a video to thank doctors and nurses
and prayer warriors for support during your month-long
stay in the transplant unit, saline bags hung to your ears
as you Elvised Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
You still love vanilla ice cream. You still allow your forty-
year-old daughter to dance on your now hammer-toed
and blue-veined neuropathied feet. You are still the one
who hangs curtains for the girl who nearly abandoned you
after that same task a half century ago, and you are still
the one who makes a detour to the bedroom on your way
to work in early morning to pull the covers over her shoulders
and kiss her goodbye like that gesture could be the last time
to tell her she’s still the one.
Jo Taylor
LAST LOOK AT MALTON
Shall we stay a little bit longer,
With the breeze caressing your face?
Shall we sit here in the marketplace,
Enjoying this glimpse of blue sky?
Shall we hold hands together, you and I?
Let's look across to the Milton Rooms,
Where you gladly danced with dad,
For in this present your past still looms,
From those happy times which you once had.
We're stirring the memories this town has on show,
Gifts to take with you as you go...
John Botterill
