The Way We Know Before We Know
for Mike James, poet (d. 12/17/23)
You were dying and I was dreaming
of you, something nice. I wish I could
be there again, a last time with you.
You were thinner, shirt weighing you down
like in recent photos I’d seen,
and dying in the dream, but still lively,
saying something Mike-like to me.
Mid-December chill, covered in layers,
I lay awake, my husband (whom you
highly approved of) deep into
his pain-pill sleep. His stillness
worried my fretful night. And finally,
the dream, then waking from it
only to get the news an hour later.
In the blackness of subconscious,
I now know: a questioning.
Were you still in the blur of hospice?
Your eyes awake, wife touching
your hand, five kids all around.
Like the five of us ringed Mother’s bed,
singing a Slavonic prayer, the priest
anointing her with attar of rose.
Was it serene that way for you, for them?
Your wife, those children, now dazed
with the dizzying grief I’ve known,
no easier even with death expected.
You’d told me it wouldn’t be long,
after all those doctors, knives, cocktails
of cruel chemicals.
You had hoped to see Christmas,
but felt thankful for so much—
soulmate, children, job, poems
you were supposed to write and did.
And I know you weren’t just saying it
(you never said anything just to please).
My last text to you was I love you.
You’ll always be my poetry buddy.
Your response: a heart icon, red and beating.
About the Author: Karen Paul Holmes won the 2023 Lascaux Poetry Prize and received a Special Mention in The Pushcart Prize Anthology. She has two books: No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich). Poetry credits include The Writer’s Almanac, The Slowdown, Verse Daily, Diode, and Plume. She hosts the Side Door Poets in Atlanta and is grateful to Mike James who was the second member way back when it started.
Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Calla Lily” (2022)
As It Ought To Be 