The Beginning
Landing. A helipad on a rooftop in April.
Stars. Scared. I’m scared. So scared.
A brain. A scalpel. Hours. Many,
many hours. Beep. The monitors
beep. Tennis shoes squeak.
Please, I need to drink something.
Something other than water.
That taste. What is that taste?
Where is my skull? My hair?
Are my curls still there? Some?
I think so. Where did my husband go?
Is he still there? My mom?
Am I alive? Is this where
alive people go? If not, death looks
a lot like a hospital. And I feel,
oh, I feel like hell. If I died,
I am certain this is hell. It’s colder than…
Oh my god. Hell is cold.
The Middle
My husband pops wheelies on Eastern Parkway to make me
laugh as he wheels me down the sidewalk to get ice cream.
Months. A walker. Even a bedazzled walker has humbled
one Kentucky woman quicker than I don’t know what.
Hard to convey. My words don’t come fast. Not like
they used to. I know what I want to say, but access
is too far away. Like constellations or high shelves or dreams.
I slur. In my head, things sound clear. But along their travels
from the electrical confluences of a foreign brain
to my mouth…. Am I having another seizure? No doubt.
My hand shakes. It doesn’t grip well. Sometimes I think if
I can think hard enough, it will. So much work to do. I thought
I knew sadness. This is jazzed-up sad. Like if pain mixed with pissed,
mixed with feel-so-sorry-for-myself-no-clue-how-a-human-
could-possibly-get-through-this, it would achieve the depth
of this sad. Heartbreak would be a reprieve from the mess of this sad.
The End
isn’t really an end. A continuum. Such subtlety
between the extremes. I’m no longer teaching students.
But talking. My voice, smoothed-out and back to Southern.
My balance. Snow is not my friend, but I’m standing
on my own. I’m walking. April, July, and December,
three separate brain hells I’ll forever remember.
Years. Years. Repetition and rhyme improve my attention.
Words come together better. Words. I love words.
I love speaking them. I love writing them.
Poetry. Hopefulness is poetry. It sparkles.
Days feel poetic. Nights sound poetic.
I’ve learned, from the darkest hole, that attitude
becomes prophetic. Attitude becomes prophetic.
©2023 Sarah Mackey Kirby All rights reserved.
Sarah Mackey Kirby grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of the poetry collection, The Taste of Your Music (Impspired, 2021). Her poems appear in Cajun Mutt Press, Chiron Review, Hobo Camp Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, ONE ART, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She says y’all a lot and likes to cook and feel summer dirt on her hands. She and her husband divide their time between Kentucky and Ohio. https://smkirby.com/