In the doctor’s office,
You can no longer write.

Looking at you,
I remember
My wedding night.
We three swished in ~
The Russian Tea Room,
Best of tables
Wyborowa martinis,
Zakuska and borscht.
We drank
Glasses of tea
With cherry jam.
Weren’t we something?
Easy vanity.

Now he is dead,
And this thing is growing
In your head.

I think of your life
Your only life.
What we have meant to each other,
You, the morning,
I, the evening.
You calmed my fears.
I moved your spiders
To the places
Where you could not see them.

So little left,
Dry as a bone,
I know that I will leave you.
Leave you with
Implants in your head,
Chemotherapy, radiation.

I will leave you with a Russian tea cup.

One day
A letter comes
In your intelligible hand
Taught by Catholic nuns,
Red welts,
Bruised knuckles.

Secretly I smile,
Save the letter
For sun-washed Garuccha.

Walking along the marble paseo
By the sea,
Past old men dressed in black,
Smoking, talking a womanless code,
Past smiling children
Playing at the shore,
Anticipating,
I choose a bench,
Open the letter.

I read
Word by word so clear
Until the letter screams
A resurrection.

I imagine our faces
Drinking glasses of tea
With cherry jam.