THE WORLD I CANNOT CATCH
Last week a woman sued Kraft
claiming it takes longer to microwave
their mac n cheese than advertised.
She’s in a hurry, so much to get done.
Not enough hours in the day.
And the box said it only takes three
minutes to make a single cup.
She says they’re wrong, says they
didn’t account for stirring the water,
letting the cheese thicken. So, a lawsuit.
Because she would not have bought
the stuff if she’d known the truth.
Across the road, my neighbor’s wife
is dying. The hospice car’s logo reads
home care forever. At the mailbox
he tells me she might have a couple more days,
if that. When I go see her, she holds my hand,
and hers is warmer than I’d expected, softer.
Like she’s just had a bath. Like she’s all ready
to get tucked in for the night, flannel gown
with pink roses, Goodnight Moon waiting.
But there’s the click and puff of the oxygen
concentrator at her side, and January’s afternoon
light throwing shadows on the wood floor.
None of us can ever know what we don’t know,
all the miracles that go unseen fall away,
what labyrinth has brought us to this moment.
She and I sit for a long time until she breaks
the silence, lifts her hand to the chickadees who flutter
at her window feeder, declaring she hopes they’ll
keep on coming back long after she is gone.
—from Rattle #86, Winter 2024
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Charlotte Matthews: “Since the pandemic, life seems chopped into little shards of time. I write poems to try to capture some of the mishmash and glue it all back together, to make something whole that cannot be broken apart. Thanks for reading.”
