by Kevin Vivers
Folding Sheets
Sheets smell of old cheese. Put away folded damp, Cheese.
Not restful. Laundry. Sheets decorate chair backs on the winter
porch even though it’s 20 out. Freeze-dry, later I will stand
in a dark womb my face crushed into that scent clouds/snow/rain/moon
and sun breathing until alveoli along my scarred right lung, fill with a helium of it.
No candle named “FreshCotton” comes close to that high. Vacuum one floor,
the other, both at once too much. Suck up dead skin cells, fur, leaves and ticks
carried in on feet of global warming this December. These rituals buy time,
narcotize me against eternity.
When does a soul hatch? I walk to the end of our block alone. A bundled purple burrito,
mittens spoils of an old wars, somehow survivors. Snow taps toenails against my hood,
silts in cracked asphalt, same asphalt my blood filled the summer I almost bled out
after surgery. They said to walk after, my foot a sailor in a sloshing red boat,
when they unwrapped my wound they said, “We never saw anything like you.”
Yeah, medical people have said that so many times in my life, seed hulls pissed
into north wind. Surprise, I don’t trust them. If the television is on, the fridge hums,
vacuum growling through reluctant carpet and I say something,
don’t you see my mouth move? I mean seriously, do you not hear me?
Does it brush your leg like seaweed in the ocean?
Wind sands skin off my papery face. An older woman poet wonders if animals
know we will sometimes not be the left but the leavers? Momentarily succumbing
to internal dialogue I worry for mine. When my heart first jittered into double time,
200 bpm alien engine’s whicker, Katie knew. Me, flat on my back on the bed,
wet from shower and she nested on my chest, always worked before.
Nurse who defibrillated me also a cat lover.
Sassie, a name I didn’t choose that stayed, going on ten. Both of us at old age’s door,
middle years sinking behind as the globe mutates. She sleeps by my head.
Does she know something? When I drift off, my hand floats onto her side,
fingers warm in her fur. Bug follows me everywhere, rarely plays though
we have our moments—he kills his blue bear over and over. He guards.
I fill my weekly plastic pill popper, less medication now than 30 years ago,
but with each swallow, with each mouthful of clean living, garden broccoli
and tomatoes, sweet potatoes, I buy more time.
Friends live with cancer. One says her son’s cancer will kill him and society uses
verbs like “battle” or “fight” to define one’s relationship with that condition.
Does anyone fight asthma? Or battle arthritis? I mean, it’s uncommon. My shoulders
ache one day, another my knee, sometimes it’s a bad back day, exotic words; sciatica,
sacroiliac which would more beautiful
if it wasn’t mine.
Sassie chews a glucosamine every other day because she is a dachshund
and we both watch our weight. I got used to tilted equilibrium, am okay
with disturbance. Losing weight always hurts. You never think about how
you stretch out the tendons, ligaments and all that connective shit that keeps
a body together while you cram cheese doodles into your mouth
watching a Netflix movie. How can breaking a heart taste so good?
Fuck me, and if I have to see that stupid ad with the trickling firehose
for a cure for blocked prostate, or that stupid guy who says how much
he loves his wife, they didn’t want the fun to end, I will puke.
Fucking more a selective thought process than back in the days of hormone tides.
Orgasms until you cramp, until you spasm with sciatica, and the dogs fly off the bed.
They’re always sniffing my breath. Ruby likes to touch her Maine Coon nose
to mine, Gabby and I bump foreheads. Gabby loves Cato and me, for sex, I mean.
Who knew cats masturbated? That last irresistible afghan my grandmother knitted,
quite a workout, generations of cats. I think Oma died before knowing this, the dead
the only ones I can learn from now. Anyway, sheets freeze on the porch. I learn to live
with twin demons. On my left shoulder the distant cousin thrice removed who I imagine
sifting my underwear and old photos, exclaiming “how much shit she had!” On my right
the other that measures time, counts minutes, days, weeks, seasons, dangling ransom’s
note unseen.
Nobody gets out of here alive. What can you do? I hope they respect my wish, mingle
my ashes with Katie’s, Lowrider’s and others who may follow. Pour us into the compost
pile. The rest, who cares? I’ve seeded the walls of this house with poems and books
for some future kid with an urge for treasure. I will be some kid’s dead teacher,
to teach her the secret lies in living.
Rachael Ikins is a 2016/18 Pushcart nominee, 2018 Independent Book Award winner, 2021 Best of the Net nominated author/artist with 9 books. Her art has appeared across the region and in NYC, Paris, France and Washington DC. Syracuse University grad, member CNY branch NLAPW, and Associate Editor of Clare Songbirds Publishing House, Auburn, NY.
Kevin Vivers – As a photographer for over 40 years, he still is constantly amazed by what the world has to offer if one just takes time to see it. He approaches his photography with a completely open mind and eye with few, if any, preconceived notions as to what he is looking for. It is that kind of freedom that helps him catch those moments as they come into view.