Last Night

I don’t know how I became her shoulder

and I never wanted to be her life.

But she has come to me and I have taken her in

finally for what she is.

I do not believe her

when she says that life has gotten away.

I deny

what it can or will or may mean

I do not accept the possibility that her girls

could not have a mother. And I could not have her.

Around to just be around

I sit with her at night on our mother’s wooden

kitchen chairs,

over white bread and pink wine.

Pretend to not hear key words like:

breathing tube, cancer, January 6^th.

Refuse to accept surgery will ever come.

Time is long when it seems short

and we have forever

right now at this table,

with the hum of the dirty refrigerator and unrestful

bark in the hallway.

---

A recent graduate of Hunter College in New York where she studied creative writing as well as journalism, Stephanie plans to attend graduate school in the fall of 2005. 

 

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