by Brandy Wilcoxen
The Pallbearer’s Daughter
He is talking to people who are not there.
My mother-in-law tells me my baby knows
secrets of the world that we do not. Babies
exist on the threshold of life and death.
My grandfather worked
in a chemical factory. It was his life
and death. He couldn’t eat sugar
for the last decades of his life.
A cancer ate him alive.
I watched my grandfather on the threshold of life and death.
He rose out of his hallucinations like a drowning face resurfacing for air.
“I love you” he gasped
as he grasped my collar. Babies are
on the threshold of life and death
I am nowhere.
A middle ground where
birth is forgotten and
death is a painting.
Life is the desert in between.
Churches are birth
And life and death.
I was the pallbearer.
I grasped the coffin in my palms.
Hospitals are for death
and life, and birth.
I held her mother’s leg.
I was the first to see her enter this world.
She wailed, covered in blood,
head full of hallucinations,
on the threshold of two worlds,
crying to people who were not there.
I cut the cord with scissors and
she stared at me like she just
woke up from a feverish dream.
Adam Galanski-De León is the author of The Laughter of Hyenas at Bay (Raging Opossum Press). He lives in Chicago, IL with his wife, daughter, and four cats. Adam maintains a website at http://www.adamjgalanskideleon.com. Instagram @adam_j_galanski_de_leon.
Brandy Wilcoxen is a writer, artist, and photographer based in Missouri, focused on finding exceptional moments in everyday life.