It Was the Snowbank I Longed For
We lay in the snow, waiting to die
The dog and I
And all I wished for
Was that I’d gotten my glasses fixed when I’d had the chance
This blurriness at the end
Was not in the plan
The dog was fogging up my face with his breath
And barking into my chest
Go home, I said
But instead he picked me up in his slender arms
And put me back into bed
Saying, I remember you shared your canned spaghetti with me
And those dollar store butter cookies
And that I take to be love
So? Indeed, then, does no good deed go unpunished?
Because it is the snowbank I long for
No, he said, Rather, what you lose in the fire
You find in the ashes
Which made no sense to me at all.
Since when do dogs talk? I asked
Oh, it happened the same day
We figured out how to pack snow in a bucket, he said
And set down a freezing metal pail
Next to my pillow, next to my head
So I could smell the new snow
Even though my glasses were broken
And I could not see it.
*
Salad
The pain is in a different place today, she said.
Higher, and less in the middle.
I don’t know what that means.
It’s not better, or worse.
It’s just not the same as yesterday.
I want a salad, she said,
Not looking at me,
Or at the tv.
Crisp, and green,
With oil and vinegar dressing.
And though the days of crispness and greenness
Had long since passed away,
I went into the kitchen
To scrub and slice and toss
The vegetables that we had.
Because I could do that, more or less.
A salad, at least, I could do.
*
Patricia Russo has had stories in Fantasy, The Dark, Clockwork Phoenix, Chizine, Podcastle, among other places, and poems in Not One of Us and Persephone’s Fruit.
