Jody's Notes
So this happened to someone I loved. Cancer. And then it metastasized into the brain. Aphasia.
We romanticize dying. Too much bad television, I guess. Movies too. It's either a dramatic act for one's last moment or it's a peaceful taking stock, gazing into one anothers' eyes, murmuring last things, saying good bye, a sad closure--all those things we meant to say but didn't. "I'll always love you," for example.
Not for me. (Not in this case, anyway.) Instead the agony of attempting to translate wordlike and sentencelike noises into English: word salad, phrases that made no sense whatsoever. And said with all the sincerity and powerful emotion that she was capable of. Tears too. Along with these strange wordish utterances. (And me going--in my head, of course: This is making no sense at all; this is really making no sense at all.) Holding her hand. Begging (in my head) for at least one word that was an actual word. Even "and" or "the." Something that might make sense for once.
Sand promises quiet.
The brain too,
is not a sponge forever:
it sheds cells, cleans itself
like a cat, dreams
of a world where light is solid,
transparent glass miserly. Its last thought:
blissings histle in the dark; its
last image: snakeskin deep,
the red dewling dawning wide.
© 2008 Jody Azzouni