HOW IT HAPPENED
I thought I’d be at his side when he died.
Didn’t think I’d find his body,
relied on the clinician
who said his cancer will take time
to spread. But death struck my husband
with a lizard-quick tongue.
Snatched him as he was reading,
a torn theater stub tucked between pages
marking his place.
I was washing dishes a room away—a thin wall
apart—belting out songs
I’ll never sing again. Believing we had months,
thinking there was time enough
to dry a second cup.
—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
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Judith Fox: “I wrote nonfiction articles for national magazines, but didn’t start studying and writing poetry seriously until the spare text I wrote for my photography book, I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer’s rekindled my life-long love of poetry. (My father gave me A Child’s Garden of Verses on my fifth birthday; don’t ask me to recite ‘My Shadow’ unless you really want to hear it.) I’m twice-widowed and live in Los Angeles.” (web)
