Naked, Unafraid

 

Vitamin D3, I found, when I moved her fridge from the wall.

To sweep: roach, worm, dust, all the residua life produce

from the farmhouse floorboards.

Annette,

Why would you need Vitamin D here, a place where sun is the main currency

and all else rests upon the ends of its rays, a place where dreams really do

exists (for better or for worse). It is never the end of a rainbow, it is always

to the ends of the sun…maybe a stowaway from Vermont and left here forever

or until I arrived.

Annette,

I’ve been sweeping your doorway for a week now and sometimes I see myself

in you and sometimes I don’t. I’m wrapping this side of your life up, I told your son

I would, no I didn’t know you, but I am starting to. When cleaning up your live-

lihood while moving mine in, I can’t help but wonder if all of it, mine and yours

shouldn’t all go together to the same place…if I shouldn’t scrape away the excesses

now and head to the water naked and unafraid: my tap shoes, your conceal and carry

cert, my strange collection of mini flipbooks, your pig with wings, I have one chopstick,

you had one small stroke, then the big one slowly being stripped of your most sacred

possession in life: your independence, or one free hand to feed yourself with when

you wanted, how you wanted, and the Haitian rum I just found for those special nights

when the sun set just right for

Annette.