Incantation

I refuse to think of it. 
 
We set up the hospital bed in the living room. I welcome its narrow 
whiteness. It makes things simple.
 
I can hardly dial the phone to summon my children.
I suspect I was not a good mother, but
 
they swirl about me like
fireflies. Do I want to eat, to drink, to go to the bathroom?
 
I can no longer walk. They drag me there like a
dead fish. Shit is sliding down my leg and staining the carpet.
 
I can no longer talk. My daughter bosses 
the hospice aide who massages my limbs.
 
I can’t open my eyes. My surgeon husband 
sticks a catheter into
 
my nonurgent urethra. I resist with my waning will. 
He wrestles me like a schoolboy and prevails.
 
I can feel his lemon guilt and
how the air holds him down, like the gathering night.
 
He sits by me and holds my hand, apologetic, dependable.
I beam at him through closed eyes.
 
I am barely conscious. I feel a sly needle slide into my arm.
Morphine takes my sloughing body. In the distance, I hear
 
my daughter ask the hospice aide to wake her when it’s 
time. Every moment opens wide. I push narrow breath in
 
…and out. Time passes like ether. I faintly feel my husband 
hold my wrist, touch my pulse. I can just hear my daughter
 
next to my ear:  I love youPeter loves youSusannah loves you. 
I love youPeter loves youSusannah loves you.
 
I love youPeter loves youSusannah loves you
I love youPeter loves youSu