by Brenda Miller

                                         —for J.

contains Eros, god of love, cupid’s
arrow piercing unexpectedly—

perhaps that’s what we’re in for:
think of St Theresa, God’s arrows

stabbing at all angles until the body surrenders.
Look: not pain, not pleasure, not the rumble

of hunger or desire. Would we call it joy?
This nipping away of the crust?

With J. we watched her body shrink for six months,
Growing light for the flight, we said

as J. got quieter, all her sharp corners gone.
She sorted greetings on the hospice bed, vast

accumulation of empty
Christmas cards, birthday, sympathy.

I guess I could send myself a card, she chortled,
saying ‘sorry you’re dead.’ She had bags and bags

of Cheetos, quarts of Ginger Ale, pictures of Jesus
elbowing Stars of David, striped socks,

polka dots. At the end, her body barely touched
the sheets, her raspy laugh an echo,

skin so thin, erased.
Think of the sand dunes in Oregon,

or the calving ice of Glacier Bay.
Think gnawing, the way a dog will

wear away a bone, or a termite
the foundation of your home.

Something is whole, and then it’s not.
Find a pattern in the cliffside,

rivulets, divots, and wrinkles
in your mother’s face. Feel it happening

even now: the love of a sandstorm,
or a zephyr, carting away, bit

by bit, all evidence
of a life already done.

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Brenda Miller is the author of five essay collections, including An Earlier Life (Ovenbird Books, 2016). She also co-authored Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining and Publishing Creative Nonfiction (Third Edition published 2019) and The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World. Her poetry has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Sweet, Bellevue Literary Review, Fusion, and Psaltery & Lyre. Her work has received six Pushcart Prizes.