Does Anyone Know -- My Husband's Mortality

Does anyone know this? Does
anyone listen to the inching of the clock,
candle, wheel, weft of
birds as they lift up? Does anyone
know this? What color is
the net of veins appearing on my eyelids
like a cage, like a fence --
don't touch me, don't touch
my family. Does anyone
notice the dirt outlining finger
nails? Does anyone curse the blossoms like
bloody white fingerprints stuck to the car
windshield from the half black-
boughed, half life-fat
apple tree? Pink
sacs appear before the flower opens
like scrotum. So dark and wet
is the tree as it dies. Does anyone see
this anymore? Does anyone see the maple's
helicopters draped in bunches on the seeking limbs?
First they are like petals and soft, then
as green as green
and firm as they dry and stiffen to fall.
Yes. We all feel the everlasting
buzz and whisperings. Does anyone hear
my husband at night as he breathes
as if through sweet hollow
poisoned tubes? The nicotine
exudes among the innocent
blankets where he and I and now our children
nestle. As I say these things I am
reminded of my deceased grandfather's
metal cigar tubes. They were also
hollow and smelled of sweet
poison.

Copyright Louise Robertson