Love Ballad

Touch me.

The words float between us. Have I spoken them?

I rest her hand on the warm soft of my belly; my skin quivers.

Outside, a pale celestial light, a blood colored sea.

A mockingbird screeches chaos in the unbearable stillness.

Her face is turned toward me, but she doesn’t see.

She is out, doubled up on pain drugs, a triple dose of Ativan.

I sing to her softly. Her words, her music.

I tell myself, Careful you don’t want to wake her.

But this is not the truth. I only want to wake her,

shake her from the disease, from its hideous numb.

I miss you, baby.

I lift her fingers to my mouth, slide them gently inside.

Light stretching from the window to the bed

disappears as a street lamp powers off.

I slip from the sheets, wrap in a white robe, one of hers.

Upstairs, out front: dawn. One more. Thank you.

But one more, means one less. How many days are we still to have?

Above me on the hill, they are building in our sky.

In two hours, the crew will arrive again. Saws, power hammers,

boom boxes serenading in Spanish. Sometimes one of the workers

sings along, a love ballad. His voice falling from the clouds.