Martha Silano
Since You’re Alive
you bother less with things like pants,
stroll into the kitchen at 5 am
wearing the $5 briefs you found in a pile
of $5 briefs at Target, floppy pink flowers
against a green background, note just how bony
your bony ass, as this thing called denervation
begins its dance in your biceps and shoulders,
though isn’t it more like August in the vineyards
of the Willamette Valley? Crushing time.
Nothing’s bleeding, no ghosts signaling
you’re gonna be fine, but when you call your brother,
tell him you want some of who you were
in the family plot, a light goes on
in your beat up Elantra:
What’s that goddamn light doing on?
Though the sky's unlit by 4 pm, unlit for over 15 hours,
which was always rough, but now, my God.
At home, you focus on the fireplace
while fearing the same flutter beneath your right eye,
which your love insists is barely visible,
but for how long? And what had I
wished for? Had it been Venice,
the Uffizi, one more hike to Mason Lake,
Spiraea douglasii along its shore?
All of it, of course, all of it in unison,
that scent of early decay, that first turn
from summer to fall.
Martha Silano is a writer living with a diagnosis of ALS. Her most recent book is Gravity Assist (Saturnalia Books, 2019). She is also co-author, with Kelli Russell Agodon, of The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice. Martha's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern. Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at Bellevue College, and her website is available at marthasilano.net.
Return to January 2024 Edition
you bother less with things like pants,
stroll into the kitchen at 5 am
wearing the $5 briefs you found in a pile
of $5 briefs at Target, floppy pink flowers
against a green background, note just how bony
your bony ass, as this thing called denervation
begins its dance in your biceps and shoulders,
though isn’t it more like August in the vineyards
of the Willamette Valley? Crushing time.
Nothing’s bleeding, no ghosts signaling
you’re gonna be fine, but when you call your brother,
tell him you want some of who you were
in the family plot, a light goes on
in your beat up Elantra:
What’s that goddamn light doing on?
Though the sky's unlit by 4 pm, unlit for over 15 hours,
which was always rough, but now, my God.
At home, you focus on the fireplace
while fearing the same flutter beneath your right eye,
which your love insists is barely visible,
but for how long? And what had I
wished for? Had it been Venice,
the Uffizi, one more hike to Mason Lake,
Spiraea douglasii along its shore?
All of it, of course, all of it in unison,
that scent of early decay, that first turn
from summer to fall.
Martha Silano is a writer living with a diagnosis of ALS. Her most recent book is Gravity Assist (Saturnalia Books, 2019). She is also co-author, with Kelli Russell Agodon, of The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice. Martha's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern. Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at Bellevue College, and her website is available at marthasilano.net.
Return to January 2024 Edition