Waking Early: (In Memoriam Jacqui Allen, partner, lover, wife, muse, who died in 2006)

There were nearly four years of waking early
To assure myself before I rose
That you were still breathing in our bed.

A habit begun
With many nights of pain and fear
When neither medicine nor positive dictats
Could cover the cancer's casual conquering
Or the roar of toxic therapies coursing
Through your will like acid.

Two in particular burn in my memory:
The first
Unstable, brewed in the basement from the graveyard yew
(Carefully dripped from a bright red bag
Into a vein swollen with attempts)
That layered your mouth, vagina and anus
With bubbles and pebbles of blisters that burst you with screaming.

The second, a drug whose effects they treated,
At last, as chemical burns to your hands and feet
Corroded from the inside
By the surplus seep of persistent poison.

I held you as close as your body could bear
You called me your rock, hoped I would always be there.
A wish you held onto until I became ill
And your focus changed to ruthless survival -
(Too stern a test for both anger and will).

The habit continues
I still wake early
But quite alone now.

Somewhere beyond an exhalation of smoke
That drifts, sole cloud, in a breathtaking sky
I hear a sound where your breathing should be.

My pillow is wet
The screamer is me.

© John Mackie 14th June 2006