white → white → white
BY LO NAYLOR
on the highway & grandmother still miles ahead
dying. I think the term is white-out—
vision impaired by sudden brightness.
also obliteration (as soul in transition).
I don’t know how many inches
it snowed that night, you should have seen me
swerve & slide in the Budget rental with no snow tires,
& in my memory the hospice hallway is white—
carpet, walls, ceiling,
everything. all the doors to Death
propped open. I found grandmother asleep in a blanket
of incredible skin—a lattice of little canyons.
so thin I thought it might rip
her dry lips → a water glass → cotton swabs
a pamphlet when the time comes
or some such.
the next part is waiting
& while we wait, I’ll tell you about a man
in a hospice center—a forest ranger
dying under white ceiling tiles.
near the end, a few firefighters carried his bed
into the forest he’d tended. they picked cedar boughs
& crushed the needles in their fingers,
set him down on dark earth,
encircled by a grove of old growth
pebbles → a stream → water trickling
I saw a picture of this.
I saw the park ranger’s face,
a pale orb in blankets—
& light snaking through leaves to kiss it.
I’ll tell you something else:
my mother makes paintings—
they cover her bedroom from floor to ceiling.
we are on the phone & she is probably at her easel
surrounded by canisters of brushes,
paint tubes, linseed oil
grandchild in crown of twigs → golden hour → birches in snow
I say even if you end up with dementia
you’ll be able to paint—
I think of this because if I end up with it,
I probably won’t be able to do what I’m sitting here doing.
you might think I’m jumping to conclusions
but let’s say I was seven
when I entered the nursing-home bedroom.
great-grandfather looked up, yelled—
my turtleneck was adorned with windmills
& he’d come, long ago, from the Netherlands.
it scared me, of course,
but I saw the sunrise & sunset
behind his eyes in a single second.
years later his daughter,
the one I sped to, my mother’s mother,
left little notes on her framed photos
to remind herself who was in them before
she fell, had a stroke, lay on her floor
for over a day, I was told
the car → the road → the snow
visiting me in Paris, my mother says thank god
she got to go then. my mother has more than once
mentioned she’ll choose an end, if it comes to it.
I say you need a plan—I say it louder
than intended, but do you understand
what she’s asking me to do?
my sister’s tools were limited.
each time she tried, it got more violent.
imagine I could have been by her side,
white snow on the Alps past the glass—
the doctor says it’s time & she’s ready so I
choke out some form of goodbye, hold her
hand as water washes
the white pill → her lips → sudden brightness
amends
BY LO NAYLOR
that I didn’t open my door to you
when you were seven.
that when you climbed the doorjamb
& peered through the transom,
I covered the glass with Abercrombie ads.
that I didn’t know you
were binge-drinking in the neuroscience lab in Oregon,
or held a friend’s gun,
stared down its hollow welcome.
that I carried on about my rosacea,
told you to make pasta when you called wasted,
that I took you to certain hospitals,
that I didn’t take you to more hospitals.
that I was living in France
the last time you did ECT,
never bought you the ticket
to meet the baby, didn’t insist
on a better residential facility.
that I didn’t track down the counselor
who—days before the end—said
if you wanted to die, you’d be dead
but even dead I see you
through the gap under the door
when you were a baby, locked in a room.
that I heard you scream yourself hoarse.
that the Cheerios I slipped into the fissure
couldn’t soothe you.
that I didn’t break down the door.
that I am stuck here
lying next to you, separated from you,
on the carpeted floor.
