Affairs Of The Mind
Cindy Duhe
She cut up pills and mystery meat
so lovingly
so I could eat.
Waving through delirium's call
with doctors, bedside
she stood strong and tall
when they told her the news
about me.
She acted like nothing was wrong
with brains and waxed floor
the smell of lysol on white walls
and eyes that glazed over her
as if she weren't there.
Never, once, did she ask why
she would merely cry tears like pearls
when I would ask 'who' and 'what'
gutting her like the trout I used to catch
on the muddy banks of the Mississippi
before it caught me
and reeled me into this terror.
Wretched darkness
in a place with nothing familiar
except for her
chipped, pink nail-polish.