photo: ralph murre
Contingency
by Marilyn
L. Taylor
MORPHINE: Dosage: 200 milligrams, typically 14 light
blue tablets
Timing: unconscious
in 5 -15 minutes, death in 20-50.
-- Thanotogast’s Suicide Methods
As soon as
the sun departs the house
At five in
the afternoon
He
deposits and seals in an amber jar
Another
pale-blue moon.
He places
the jar on the cabinet shelf
And
swivels the handle tight;
Pockets
the key in his terrycloth robe
And sits
and waits for night.
He can
hear the grandchildren crowing below,
Awash in
their video games;
He tries
for a time to assemble their faces,
And say a
few of their names.
But he
can’t recall how many he has,
Or what
their small fantasies are,
Or why
their mothers and fathers have come
To put his
clothes in the car.
He careens
on the edge of a desperate thought,
A glimmer
from where he's been—
But he doesn’t
remember the amber jar
Nor the
moons crumbling within.
~
initially published in First Things
