On my first date after M died, I met the woman –
a friend of a friend – and discovered we lived on
the same street in hell. This past year, her
ebbing parents' health forced her to arrange doctor appointments,
a senior living move, finally hospice,
and twin funerals. Then, wouldn't you know, in the
middle of it, her regularly scheduled breast exam
revealed The Big C – immediate chemotherapy
recommended. And, as if the woes of Job were not
enough, her doctor husband thought it the perfect time
to confess he was seeing a much younger woman.
My last year was bad enough. My wife dying after
a six months tour through hospitals/rehabs/hospice,
but compared to her . . .
Nice woman, but it didn't work out.
On the second date, underneath parking lot fluorescence,
I hugged her – felt her birdlike hollow ribs.
She was thin as my wife before she died.
I knew then, selfish bastard that I am,
I couldn't survive another woman dying on me.
Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, a writer from Fort Worth, Texas, has had poems published in The Texas Observer, Concho River Review, Borderlands, California Quarterly, and two anthologies of Texas poetry.