Tuesday poem #240 : Rebecca Salazar : A death preceded by three auguries

i.

In your last week, when they say you might stop eating, you eat

twenty seven watermelons whole. The brothers ogle:

pink juice parsing the lines of your face and depositing

carbuncles, sugar gems on your cracked lips and chin,

like the starched stars that web across summer fruit rinds.

ii.

The hospice halls heavy and cloying with jasmine and rose.

We are immersed. After lights-out, the sisters sneak

from the guest room, both drunk on perfume more viscous

than honey. Their shoes syrup-stick to the floor before

they reach your bed. They sway, sick with the brilliant scent.

iii.

Morning sickness wakes the mother, hot sleep wicking down

the hard sphere of her belly. A blue votive flame

draws her to eyes to the phone at her bedside, the number

unknown, cool voice calling for warmth just as you

signal sounds like her name in your tapering sleep.

Rebecca Salazar is the author of Guzzle (Anstruther), and an editor for The Fiddlehead and icehouse poetry. Her poetry appears in Prism, Minola Review, and Cosmonauts Avenue, and her non-fiction in The Puritan and Partisan Magazine. Originally from Sudbury, Ontario, she is currently a PhD candidate and Vanier scholar in New Brunswick.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan