Cathy

She's in the hospital
who yesterday taught us the language
of Camus, Dostoevski and Plath.

She has no voice today.

Paralysis is complete on one side
and who can remember
the thoughts she thought
as she left the road . . .

I'm heading back today (not to the hospital)
but to the bar where we were, laughing but serious,
when she said that Plath would be alive today
if women had learned their strength sooner . . .

I'll drink a favorite draft of ours
and maybe find someone to talk with
about something,
but not about hospitals . . .

maybe about Cathy . . .

roosters before dawn

I have heard the talk
at kitchen tables
between turns of solitaire
among brown-circled cups
of instant coffee
about the terrible sadness of silent
couples in restaurants
and their trips to the bathrooms