Non Sequitur by Margot Schilpp

Non Sequitur

 

These days, what comes from your mouth

often surprises. This afternoon I am

reading to you the biography

of Teddy Roosevelt, condensed

by Reader’s Digest, yet expanded,

too, the large print banking off the light,

the pages glaring. My voice

keeps coming out hard, loud,

almost falling against itself.

I continue. I explain.

As though your childhood had come after

mine, as though the light

in this room had bounced

off plastic liners and catheters.

I am angry how age is romanticized.

Angry that people don’t talk

about incontinence or skin

that erases itself from

the constant weight of the body.

You are in bed, but I ask,

this third time, if you want to get up.

You’re satisfied to know

you’re already there, again.

It’s some time later when you crook a finger.

You ask me to come closer. You whisper,

You could kill me in my sleep.