Without An Intermission

Following the news
I feel like I’m watching
one of those movies where
the character suffers on and on
through one challenge after another
only to end after three hours
with a cryptic scene I can’t tell
is hopeful or not.

I’ll accept that Happily Ever After
only exists in some parts of Movie Land
but couldn’t we at least have
intermissions, like the old days
when we watched movies in palaces
with red velvet curtains and chandeliers.

Ghandi was the last major film
to have a built-in break
and that ends with the hero’s ashes
scattered over the Ganges.

What does that foretell for me
if I stay tuned in to the headlines
without an intermission?

*

Double Zippers on His Backpack

He asked me this morning,
as I packed his lunch, to pull
the double zippers to the top.
It’s easier for him to open
when he’s hooked to machines.

We are quiet on the drive over,
except for a few pleasantries
about how we hope this session
won’t take as long as the last one,
maybe the nurses won’t be as busy
and there won’t be a lag between
the pre-meds and the chemo.

We don’t discuss how he’s offering
his veins for another eight weeks
to elicit an extension, not a cure.

The words feel double zipped
inside the laden bag
he slings over his thin shoulder
before he waves goodbye.

*

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit her online at jacquelinejules.com