Breathing With Bill

He breathes the shallowness of age.
I wait between each breath, willing

the next, listening for rasp or snore.
A whisker twitches in a dream chase,

a remembered fling with a sleek Siamese
quickening the pulse, heavy breathing brief

but filling old lungs with sweet air.

Paul

The walls were peeling, old paper
and paint yellowed behind the brass bed.
Your brother lay closest to the wall,
dressed as I last saw him, and there was no
love lost. Stirrings in the other room,
where the sun filtered through old glass,
and you came through the door.
You seemed shrunken, as though
to fit the room, the low door,
the angle of shadows.
You lay on your side on the bed,
and I saw your brother was gone.
Good, I thought, it is just us.
You were uncomfortable,
resigned to this being the only rest
you could expect, this time off
from Barcelona, Manila, Bangkok.
I offered my home, my rooms,
but you declined. This would do,
this would do for now, and you pulled
up your knees, a child's pose,
vulnerable, approachable. I sat
beside you, my hand on your hip,
your skin warm beneath the jeans.

I'll talk to you when you're dead
the way I do now when you're gone,
when you're only in my head,
your thoughts a fur-lined glove
filling every crevasse of my palm,
familiarity your voice.
This time, this dream, this quiet room
I lean over to say I love you.
I love you, you say, and sigh.

Dr. Potter

I am not strapped to the chair;
I voluntarily recline in dread.
Diplomas hang before me, testaments
to learned skills. They mean nothing
as he leans in, masked, glasses glinting,
a syringe and needle meant for the soft
membrane of my gums, the inner cheeks,
the delicate palate in the roof of my mouth.
My jaws stretch open with instruments
invented by Torquemada in his search
for heretics; silent prayers to Diana
go unanswered as muscles are stretched
beyond their reach and the drill grinds
against enamel, shrill whine echoing
in the hollow cave of my mouth.

^

Biography

Cathy Calkins has a degree in secondary education and nursing, and currently works as a nurse, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has had poems published in The Evansville Review, North American Review, Cider Press Review, Weber Studies, The Hurricane Review, Salt Hill, Agnieszka's Dowry and Electric Acorn, and recently had poems accepted by RN. She's completed her first book of poetry, "Time Pieces" and is currently working on a book of personal essays, "Telling Stories."