“The only thing I remember about being with Tony was that he changed positions constantly.”
“Rick was bisexual and sometimes that was hard to handle because I’m not used to competing with men.”
“I just don’t get it—I just don’t get it. I feel like I’m constantly being tested. I feel like I’m going to scream—give me a break, God. Give me a break. And then I found out Martin’s coming over tonight.”
— K. E. Hansen
Lying in lingerie,
as you often do in the middle
of the day, you work on The Men
chapter of your autobiography, drafting
in your head, trying to decide how many
can you include, how steamy
should you go. Even leaving out
a few dozen,
sometimes you aren’t sure you’ll be able
to fit the men you’ve loved
in one chapter.
They drift in and out like lifeboats,
docking at your heart,
roping round your body,
then cutting loose after a few
months, most unable to sustain
attachment through the diabetes tidal wave
surging through your life.
With names spanning the alphabet,
and life stories as varied,
the man in your life gives you
energy when you’re down,
someone to look forward to,
phone calls, shared meals,
and warm nights
when your hands can explore
the length and depth of his body,
massage head to toe
face, arms, hands, chest, legs, feet,
express through your fingers
and lips
the joy you feel
in seeing
him,
blindness disappearing in darkness
as you take in with touch
features and contours
of another.
Most float out of your life one night
to the next, but a few stay through passion
and pain to weather a relationship.
Kevin, seven years younger
still living with his parents,
stays over one night with his guitar
and doesn’t leave till two years later.
Zack, a biker with serpent tattoos, loves you
with a steely tenderness,
seeing you through the turmoil
of the two amputations and the stroke,
without breaking open
his own heart.
Yet best for last, comes Martin.
Your cab driver
as you depart from a three-month stint
at a convalescent hospital, the two of you bond
over Buddhism, he a lifelong student,
you a Christian learning Buddhism
in the everyday challenge of living
in your body, letting go of who you were
and wanted to be, every day a giving up
and getting up.
Twenty years your senior,
Martin calls you his “girl,”
introduces you to Chai,
reads to you on Saturday afternoons,
and even when he gets a “lady friend” in his life,
remains a phone call away day or night,
to reassure you that this body
is only a suitcase
for your soul,
waiting to be
unpacked.
Cherishing you like no other,
to the end he takes you to Pleasure Point,
a spot where you used to surf,
still your favorite place in the world.
Sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean,
air thick with seagulls, sea spray, sea scent,
he describes the shade that day,
cobalt blue, dark turquoise, jade green,
and together you gaze out at the surfers,
lying on their boards, waiting
and waiting for the right wave,
then all at once paddling, crouching,
and finally, braced and balanced in the wind,standing at last.
“I have an ego the size of a Porsche.”
—K. E. Hansen
Each piece takes hours,
blue under gray, gray over blue, cord upon cord,
slowly you knot
intricate spirals.
Doctors have given you The Sentence
over and over
neurologists, nephrologists, endocrinologists,
can’t seem to figure out how
you keep pulling through.
You store colored beads in different sized
jars, a rainbow small to large.
Bit by bit, you intersperse them in symmetrical
patterns, each bead a witness to concentration
woven with curses
as you keep track of multiple cords,
threading, braiding, looping, knotting
by touch alone.
By now, your body is a battlefield,
legs, abs, hands, breasts, face,
assaults on every front,
eye and limb
casualties.
You’ve lost track
how many times they’ve told you to get ready
for goodbye,
how many times you’ve kept preparing
for tomorrow.
Mid-piece, you always wait for a pair of eyes
to critique,
later, unraveling, unbraiding, unstringing,
if a single bead does not match
your plan.
Days when you’re rushed to ER,
sugar plunging or skyrocketing,
the doctors ask if you remember
who you are,
and you give them your first, middle, last,
and the names and doses
of every medication your doctor’s ordered,
the —izers, the —iptins, the —izones,
reciting the list
even on your way out
of consciousness.
Had you ever had a call back,
you would have put aside your macramé
and taken work,
when you could,
a telemarketer, you hoped at one point,
a survey conductor, you wished at another.
No employer took the risk.
“She’s not going to make it
this time,” doctors tell your family when you slip
into a coma one day and fail to slide
through. Week four, week five, week six,
they wait
for you to die.
Years’ end, you’re macraming again,
ornaments, key chains, wall hangings,
hands even slower now,
each piece days’ labor,
gifts you will wrap in thick Hallmark paper
the kind that does not wrinkle easily
you have called three stores to find.
Only your primary doctor
finally gives up
predicting,
realizing at last
you’re not going to go
on someone else’s
timetable,
not going to give up
before you’ve threaded through every bead
of energy you have for this life,
not ever going to start
cutting corners.
“There is no ugly flower on earth. They are all beautiful, and they know to look to the sun for their light.”
— K. E. Hansen
I wheel you into the sunny courtyard, a fusion
of bromeliads, ferns, palms. A dozen doors look
into the courtyard, yet I’ve never seen anyone
emerge. Residents lie wilted
in their beds.
Angling your wheelchair to maximize sun
and sitting on a bench nearby, I remember
many times I’ve sat with you as you sunbathed,
your skin, soaked
in lavender lotion, bronzing in the heat.
Stretched out bikini-clad,
you would tell me about your latest love.
Corey. Todd. Max. Names changed
often, your excitement
never did. We are quiet
now.
Planted in this nursing home, unwillingly
uprooted, you know well what's
ahead: TV (Animal Planet or Jeopardy),
dinner hour (corned beef or turkey), sleeping pill
(one—or two, if you get lucky). Your roommate
no longer speaks. Next door,
a woman in her nineties wails
for her mother, long since dead.
Yet at this moment,
past and future melting,
you lift
your face to the sun, brilliant
smile unfolding,
simply absorbing,
drinking warmth,
finding the nutrients
in the earth of your life.
