Climbing the stairs, slowly, on my palmsand soles, bent far forward, I seemy shins closer than usual—their indigo and red-violet fireworks,their royal-blue wormholes—how much differencebetween me and a cadaver?I know I won’t come, after I’m dead,though it does seem a little strange, to me,and strange that what we learned in Seventh-Grade Healthis not a structural part of each of us like heartbeat and breath,though sometimes people die of a heart attack in bed.I think my mother’s father did, when he was with his mistress,then they said to his wife he had fallen down the cellarstairs that weren’t there. I told my son that—in his late forties, when he said I nevertold him anything about my family—and he said, What did they do then, throw him down the cellarstairs?This morning, in a dream, his father came into a restaurant, I waswaiting on the banquetteand I saw him at a distance, taller than everyone,and with that light in the air around his faceI had seen, sometimes, when I’d arrived late to meet him.It was not his whiteness—I had seen it around my boyfriend’s facein high school.With Joey I thought it was genius, inspiration almost like possession,and I think it was,with my ex I thought it was goodness but I think it was sexual loveand the illusion his tolerance for me would be lifelong.I don’t remember the last time we made love before I moved into theliving room when I understood he was really going toleave me.I didn’t know it was the last time,but it was like all the other times, complete, and wrenching,though I think I said, after the series of orgasms, One more? anddid he kiss me,or smile, or grunt,and I came again, although I was dead.
