
blueeye.jpg
Third prize winner of the 6th Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Contest.
I have sent my Louie at least twenty letters since the stroke. Yesterday my mother said postage was going up and where was I sending those letters anyway, it didn’t look like I was getting any back. At eighty, my mother still has a knack for words.
“Only when it’s dark can you see the stars,” she might say. “Make a bouquet from the flowers at hand.”
“Suck it up, buttercup.”
Okay, that last one’s mine, but it’s what she’s thinking. My left eye hasn’t closed since the stroke. I have to put drops in it. It stares like a person in shock being led through a room, gawking but not grasping a thing. I imagine carrying my eye in the crook of my arm, huge, like a football, and me saying to others, “Excuse me. Whoops. Out of our way. Sorry folks, eye coming through.”
Louie tried to make love to me after the stroke. I guess there were things we should have dealt with first. You know, I always thought Louie kept his eyes shut during sex. Maybe it was only by some blink between thrusts that his lids whipped apart. Or maybe I’d quit moving, my eye transfixed on the way gravity was making pouches of Louie’s skin, his face slack and puckered at the same time. Realizing he’d always looked like that, I’d just never seen it, made our life seem somehow a sham. When his own eyes opened and stayed that way, he must have seen something that enlightened him too. I know we let something important go by, but at the time there wasn’t words. He went soft inside me, like a balloon losing air. What was it my mother said yesterday?
“Nobody has measured what a heart can hold.” Or was it “the heart holds what nobody has measured.” Maybe it was “measured, the heart holds nobody.”
Comments (21)
Comment FeedBeautiful language.
Anonymous more than 12 years ago
This is a beautiful
Anonymous more than 13 years ago
Good riddance to Louis, I
George S more than 13 years ago
Beautiful story, Donna! I
Bernadette Wagner more than 13 years ago
Loved it...fabulous flow,
islander more than 13 years ago
how wonderfully short,
Lee Kvern more than 13 years ago
Eye like it! Poetic, subtle,
Fish more than 13 years ago
Ever the poet, your final
Barbara Swail more than 13 years ago
Check out the mag on the far
hg more than 13 years ago
Great imagery. And you create
Rebekah more than 13 years ago
All it takes is one blink of
Ingrid Elena Pavia more than 13 years ago
Great Imagery. Beautiful
Megatron more than 13 years ago
Great story! Enjoyed the
Anonymous more than 13 years ago
I enjoyed the use of
Anonymous more than 13 years ago
Excellent piece! I got
IJM more than 13 years ago
Last paragraph says it all.
JL more than 13 years ago
Good story - very gripping,
Anonymous more than 13 years ago
Maybe it's something I'm not
Laurie more than 13 years ago
beautifully sad and powerful,
ken flett more than 13 years ago
I really like this...
Anonymous more than 13 years ago
Incredible as always, rich
Muskwaman more than 13 years ago