Me and My Lass, We Are a Poem

We tangle our hair in the moon,
then she coughs and I have no net

to catch the cough so I make her hot tea
with honey. I call her my coughing alarm clock,

but she's warmer and smoother than our oven
for waltzing with.

When we travel in our covered wagon,
she's in the bathtub splashing her way

across the prairie, singing Bo Diddley songs.
Any drops she spills

the prairie dogs lick them up.
That's the kind of poem she is.

When we lie down in the earth,
we'll need coffins with holes bored

through their sides: we'll each have
one arm hanging out

so I can take hold of her
hand, even while we're in the dirt.

Some nights our bed floats through
the bedroom wall. We're on our bellies

laughing and rowing with one arm.
When we get tired, the stars

make nice pillows for our heads.
The wind is what wakes me,

blowing so hard I watch my love's skin
flake off: a whole storm of her

flutters away from me until all that's left
inside her is a tired old woman

holding her spine like a candle.

taken from We Bed Down into Water, by John Rybicki

poem about his wife, dying of cancer.