What I Will Say

1. She says my stomach aches because I take too much of the world in. She says I keep coughing because I smoke too many cigarettes. Both of these things are true, which means I won’t admit them. What I will say is that I wish so much I could control the kinematics of trauma, play the physicist, or the magician, find the right hat to wear, some surgical mask, that would allow me to transfer your pain, remove it like an appendix, you won’t even miss it. 2. I wish I could find a cool lab coat, create a new transfusion, one that would allow me to hurt so badly for a few hours, and you can worry about which shoes to wear. It’s true that no matter the accent, cancer cuts the same way on every tongue and it never comes out cleanly, we have to pluck it from our teeth like pieces of meat, hold it with two fingers, and figure out just what it is, and then how to deal with it. 3. This morning, it was so quiet over the Longfellow Bridge, that I could hear my blood moving, and my heart beat so damn well under my sternum that I felt guilty about it. And as my feet pressed down on the pedals, I thought of Andy moving his leg with both hands, and as my hips shifted over my seat I swear I heard my father’s pelvis cracking against a Chrysler windshield, and as I put my cigarette to my lips, I saw your mother’s mouth moving to make a joke, and when I put my hand in my pocket, I thought of the way you pull your collar down with your index finger before you pinch your shirt up by the shoulders, and as I sat down to write, all I could think of is how you’re in my gut now, and I have never been so grateful for this ache. -- (k)