Denial

I have always known I would lose you

but I didn't believe it was true.

I want more

    for you, of you.

I know that you have fought incredible odds to remain as long as you have.

You have been willing to sacrifice your comfort, your peace, your sanity

for those you love, those who depend on you.

You love so well...oh, I've never seen love like yours!

Your love astounds me, awes me, fills my every pore.

Your love is voluminous and limitless.

You quietly move through this world on your own frequency - 

out of beat with the rest of humanity,

nearly immortal with the vastness of your days, the brevity of your nights.

You toil heavily onward as the rest of us rest; 

you create and build and tend as we recover from this light-and-easy living that we do.

You are so certain that you are a burden...

you are so certain that the price we pay for your presence is a price that is painful to pay.

The pain is in your absence.

Our pain, that is...

The idea that your pain is in remaining present takes my breath away,

surges tears across my cheeks.

I believe you.

I can only barely see the outline of the enormity of your struggle to stay as long as you have, and it is still easy to believe you that it is too much to continue.

I wish...I wish that prayers worked.

I wish that my love could heal your body's illness the way yours heals my soul.

I wish that I could dissolve into mist and wind my way into your dreams so that I could vanquish those demons and let sleep be the refuge you deserve.

I wish there was a treatment that didn't leave you hollow and lifeless.

I wish. I wish...

but instead, I'm grateful.

So very fucking grateful.

Generations

The rich taste is still on my tongue

as I clean carefully, an important part of the ritual -

every tool, every receptacle scoured 

then placed into the dishwasher for a final disinfection.

Every surface washed, washed again.

The spiny, bright red carcasses -

jagged and wet -

are piled into the waiting double-layered bags propped in the sink;

bags are tied off, placed into the kitchen trash -

which is immediately tied off and taken to the outside bin.

The germ load is negligible; the residue easily wiped from surfaces.

The taste...every buttery, white-and-red fleshy bite...exquisite.

But that smell.

The heavy odor hangs in the air

clings to every surface

coils around the coils of my hair,

sinks into my pores.

Too hot outside to open windows

(why am I living here...in...Allentown...?),

I'll clean again tomorrow and wait for the smell to dissipate.

But before the ritual,

seawater dripping from my elbows,

fingers raw from ripping apart at joints,

busting open at weak spots...

I stand over my kitchen counter in post-workout-shower pajamas, 

barefoot and grinning like a girl in love,

and shovel bite after bite straight into my mouth;

some get slopped through the custard dish of melted butter

but most go straight onto my tongue...

I sigh deeply, eyes closed, savoring...

I think of all the men in my bloodline who have broken their bodies 

or lost their lives hauling these gorgeous, 

deep-brown-and-golden ancient insects from the frigid currents 

at the bottom of the Atlantic.

I think of the sun creeping-then-blasting over the horizon, 

melting its colors across the surface, 

painting over the blue for brief day-breaking moments 

until the oranges and pinks melt away again and leave the blue - 

sparkles dancing across the surface, blinding.

Or the heavy mornings of air so thick with fog that even they could get lost.

Or the bitterly cold March mornings 

with wind that cuts through every layer of wool, neoprene, gortex, skin-blood-bone.

My father, his father; my brothers.

My uncles, their sons.

The men who married my cousins,

the island girl who divorced one.

The men who learned from their fathers, or neighbors, 

or the one who moved to town during high school -

all were beckoned by the unexpected Sirens to a harsh, grueling vocation.

I might not want the smell to linger,

but I'll hold close my memories and quiet reverence 

for the work it took 

to get these perfect creatures out of the ocean 

and into my happy belly.