photo: ralph murre
About Suffering
by
Marilyn Annucci
Though you sang to me
while I stood at the stove,
and spoke of cures,
even your optimism in those
days
made me a little sad.
The only life I’ve ever
wholly believed in
has been the
body half-broken,
or leaving. Even when we
find the ones
who make us laugh,
whispering
silliness into one
another’s necks.
Your pile of pills each
morning
has grown, the proteins
trying
to transmit signals
to the brain’s front doors
with instructions: Lift
hand.
Regulate
temperature. Speak.
Speak to me, dear one,
tell me again, though you
scramble a word,
lose a thought, need
another nap.
It takes more than a leap
of neurons
to love like this.
~ previously published in Waiting Room
