The way my Chicago poetry open mic’s first host David Rubin would write poems about his dreams, I needed to remember my having these dreams - and memories.

 
your body from the tub
(dreams 3/30/21)

Janet Kuypers

Maybe I should have watched you die.
I thought at the time I couldn’t stand the pain
of watching it happen to you, so I said no.

Once you were sedated, you were laying
on that medical table, and you just slid, and fell
toward the ground. I caught you and lifted you

back to that medical counter. The way
your head curled in looked unnatural to me,
and when I looked I saw your eyes were open

and I thought you already died. But the doctor
told me this was common, and now it is only time.
You don’t need to see this if you know what it’s like,

the doctor said to me, and for some insane reason
I agreed. But maybe I should have seen you die,
so that I wouldn’t dream about you coming back.

—

We came back from I don’t know where, he went
to the kitchen, maybe to check on his beer brewing,
and was off to where his machinery hummed for him.

I went upstairs, into the master bathroom, and
when I looked into the tub, still filled with six inches
of water, I saw you lying face down, with your nose

to the drain. I yelled to him, for help, but he
didn’t hear, so I knew the terrible thing I had to do —
remove your body from the tub. This was it,

you were dead, and I cannot remember if I
pulled up my sleeve or lifted my shirt to stop it
from getting wet while I retrieved your corpse,

but once I reached into the water to touch
the back of your head, you actually started to move.
Like you were still alive, but not spitting out air.

I panicked, tried to lift you to my shirt,
and it was like you leaned your head into my shoulder
the way you always did to get closer to me —

the way you would tighten your pads around
the tip of my finger, like you were hugging me.
Like how you’d rest your paws at my shoulder

and lay down along my side to sleep at night.
I was overwhelmed, I didn’t know if you were alive
or dead — I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know

what this dreamworld was trying to tell me.
So suddenly I thought I needed a blanket for you,
so I started to walk to the closet for the bright

green towel we just washed after your final trip
to the doctor. I don’t remember getting the towel,
I don’t remember him coming to help. I just woke up.

Once, when we had water from a bath still in a tub and Zach was standing on the tub edge trying to get a bug that landed on the surface, he reached for it, and when his paw touched the water he instinctively lifted his paws in the air as he fell into the tub of water. (He was not pleased.)

When I’d put my finger in his front paw between the pads, he would tighten his pads around the tip of my finger like he was holding my hand. In bed, he’d rest his paws on my shoulder when my arm was stretched out, so he could lay down along my body.

When we had no power in the ice storms in February, we had a tent on the main floor at night to sleep, and Zach (not Mynx, she’s the scardey-cat) would stay in the tent with us and curl up for warmth.

When this open mic runs at Austin’s Recycled Reads Bookstore (like Labor Day weekend) it would be closed.

I have honored the time constraints of the open mic as if it were still at Recycled Reads - though for the Sunday of Labor Day weekend in 2020 (which was closed at Recycled Reads) we *did* run a Zoom meeting on that Sunday.

But this is Easter. That’s kind of a big thing for a lot of people.

As host, I can say I may have plans on Easter Sunday and cannot make it, but I really wanted to ask and get your pulse on this (so to speak). If you normally come to the “Poetic License” open mic on the 1st Sunday of the month through Zoom meetings, let me know if (A) you think it is a good idea to have a Zoom meeting for “Poetic License” on Easter Sunday, and (B) if you would come to a Zoom meeting for “Poetic License” on Easter Sunday, less than a week and a half from now, on Sunday, April 4th, 2021.