The Second to Last Day

2nd Place in the Poetry Writing Contest

Issue 18

Sunday, your second to last day,
you held court,
sitting on the grey sofa, feet up.

You joked with our friends, our children and
grandchildren while the oxygen tank, like
a metronome, went beep, beep, beep,
its cadence like the beat of dance steps
 we loved to sway to.
                     Oh, how we loved to dance.

We always felt young again, the noise of four
kids, missed assignments, arguments, all the
craziness of our family faded
when we were in each other’s arms.

In the evening you collapsed in the bathroom.
I couldn’t help you up. I put a pillow behind your head,
called Hospice, our son, our friends Flossie and Tony
and somehow, we got you into bed

I placed a few drops of morphine under your tongue.
It calmed you and you slept, but I twisted and turned
in the bed we shared for fifty years. Often
in the dark I slithered next to you, inhaled your scent
so familiar, put my arms around your wasting
body, listened for your breath.

Then it was the next to last day, but we didn’t know
it was the next to last day. Andrea visited with
Sydney and Aidan. You played War with Aidan.
I beat you again, Papa, you owe me a dollar.
You took a dollar from the pocket of your robe and said,
I’m going to die never having won a game of War from Aidan.
We laughed through clouded eyes.

In the evening a hospital bed was delivered.
You wanted it in our bedroom but there
was no space, so it was set up in the guest room,
the room with the Murphy bed
and I said, I’ll stay with you, don’t worry.

But we didn’t have linens for the hospital bed,
so we went to sleep again in the bed we shared for fifty years.
And this night, which we didn’t know was the last night,
you slept fitfully, hallucinated from the morphine. I shook you
said, Marv, it’s okay, moved my body close to yours,
held onto what was left of you.

You awoke as the sun streamed through the shutters in our bedroom.
I helped you with your clothes and you gave me
that crooked half-smile, the same half-smile you had when we danced.

You didn’t want to eat, refused water, so I sat next to you, held
your hand, sipped my morning coffee. Tony, brought over
linens for the hospital bed, we got you settled
You laid back on the pillows, eyes half closed.

I looked at you, my heart sunk to my knees,
Don’t go, don’t leave me, I said to myself.
I wiggled your toes, the way I used to wiggle the kids toes
to get them up in the morning.
You nodded.

​I strode into the kitchen,
wrung my hands, squelched a sob,
set out leftovers for lunch
even though I wasn’t hungry.
You were alone.
At the kitchen table
I listened for the machine
            There was no sound.             
 
For MJA, May 14, 1938-April 30, 2013 

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JANICE ALPER is a superager whose work has been published in the San Diego Poetry Annual, Bards Against Hunger, and A Year in Ink, and many other places. She is currently enrolled in an MFA program in Creative Writing/Poetry at San Diego State University.

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