Penumbra Weekly: Week of 3/3

That blue couch became my favorite spot when the doctor

Would walk in. It was slightly behind the bed, so when he said

He was going to adjust her position, I didn’t have to see her as he 

Turned my grandma on her side, and she groaned in pain and did

Her best to stay awake. I could sink into the corner and all

I would see was my grandpa comforting her at her bedside. He

Would put his fingers to her cheek as he always did, and I could

Picture them before I ever knew the blue couch. When you

Didn’t have to walk past front desk security if you were

Going to see your grandma. And back when the

Brown gazebo behind their brick house was the last

Place I would go before we got on the plane. When the thing

I looked forward to most about visiting was my brother and I

Playing pretend in their basement because they had

Foam swords that we could use as props. And I loved the game that

I would play with my grandma, called Mastermind, even if I was

Cheating by looking under the glass table to see if my guesses were good

And if the colors I chose matched hers. I never got away with it. So,

As my grandpa removes his hand from her cheek I remember that I

Am sitting on the blue couch, and I’m not in Chicago where we walked

Around their neighborhood, throwing rocks in the streams, for miles.

Instead, I strain my hearing trying to listen to Ken Jennings’s voice on

The TV, but the volume comes out of the remote, which is sitting on the

Hospital bed, so all I can hear is that the winner today is from Tulsa,

Oklahoma. I give up on the TV and instead look out of the windows onto the streets

Of Stamford below me. At least the windows span the length of the wall, and light

Streams in as the sun sinks lower in the sky, and silhouettes of buildings started

To emerge. The view of the Long Island Sound in the distance, the sun beamin’

Over the horizon as if it is saying its final goodbye. Soon, the harsh overhead light in

The room will be glaring as I eat dinner on the blue couch and watch her bed from

A distance. We say goodnight, turn the couch into a bed for my grandpa, and as I walk out the 

Door, I look back out the window and feel thankful that at least her room isn’t facing east.

when i have received my last applause, and when

i look to the silhouettes of my final audience,

when my face no longer pales under the brilliance

of stage lights, and the curtain sinks to never again

cover my feet, i will ruin my eye makeup then

with weeps that paint black lines down my cheeks,

and i will think of the stage before bed for weeks

then dream of returning and dancing it all again. 

I will be unhooked from my tutu and stripped

of the pins in my hair; my crown will fall off my head

and thud against carpeted floors. My shoes, torn

from my bleeding feet, ripped from my heart, and slipped

in a locked box, will collect dust, begging to be reborn

as together, helplessly, we can do nothing but lie dead.