Some deaths take the slow turn in the light from dusk to night.
My father takes his time is trying to befriend him.
When he goes with it he will go.
He will trust death as a friend near the end of his life.
There were not many late nights he did his drinking at home.
And worked one job for 50 years he didn’t gamble or cheat.
Was home for dinner every night he listened to us talk in silence.
Now death walks by his side of the bed sinks, his body
Weighs the mattress down the hall it breaks into a sprint.
I witness it encroach step by step he eases into lethargy.
Hair and skin looking so thin was he always so thin?
A creaking sound walks around the house I hear the weight of delirium.
He can’t sleep with the noise of him gasping echoes.
When he awakes he dreams his father yelling, Get Up.
Someone’s at the door knocking.
Copyright © 2022 by Celeste Guzmán Mendoza. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 6, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what’s underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store with all those keys glittering in the window, past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly, hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders. I want to walk like I’m the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me, to show you how little I care about you or anything except what I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment from its hanger like I’m choosing a body to carry me into this world, through the birth-cries and the love-cries too, and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin, it’ll be the goddamned dress they bury me in.
From Tell Me by Kim Addonizio. Copyright © 2000 by Kim Addonizio. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd. All rights reserved.