Deathbed
She thought the cancer might have come
from something she heard a man say
in the dark, tenderly. Or from the moon
she said shone upon them when he said it.
Or from the census made
of the entirety of her freckles, or the freckle
that vanished into the quick of her upper lip.
Possibly from the tip of a tongue, from sweat
or saddle leather. Possibly from all that lace.
She thought there was a word somewhere
that was the seed of it, in the furrow
of a sentence that might have been a lie
in a crop that was her life. She thought,
if she thought about it, she would remember
what it was he said and how
it was it uncoiled within her,
or whether her believing it was the problem.
She never thought she would live forever,
but she knew she would outlive him,
who died a year to the day after he said it,
to whom she gave what she gave without hope,
before he helped her back onto the horse
and walked her back to what she would know.
As important to her as the word or words
she longed to remember, she longed to remember
what could have become of her shoes,
how it was she was barefoot, and what it meant
that she was mesmerized by the sight
of her feet, outside the stirrups,
palely swaying under the moon.