Self-Elegies 

Because why not? Why not take the smashed pinecone 

of my life, render it in purple? Why not dream of baking 

thirteen pies, six bumbleberry, seven sour cherry? I wouldn’t 

press myself into a grief box, but I will confess I’m happiest

under a sleeping sky, love the darkness like I loved to run

through old-growth Doug firs and cedars. There’s no more

rolled-out crust, no more loping strides or flour, but at midnight

I read a book about microbes and fungi, how these critters

find a way into us, never leave. It’s the never-leaving part

I like. It’s the memory of the Cuisinart loaded with dough,

the rolling out, crimping with a fork. No grief in the night,

though I’d welcome a northern shoveler, the green head 

of a mallard. The Vaux’s swifts that crowd the rising moon. 

My husband’s favorite tomato, the Jaune Flamme.

In a Plum Village meditation, a woman says smile, 

so I smile, though sometimes I don’t, though sometimes 

I’m unable. Disabled is my smile, and a lot makes me cry. 

I tell those who hear me sobbing I’m not sad, and it’s true— 

I’m moved when friends bring fennel soup or say I look,

well, undying, when I share my joy that my daughter

has said hello to my death, not exactly made friends

but isn’t hysterical, and isn’t that like a favorite song,

the unsilence of “The Sound of Silence”? She’s smiling, 

beautiful in her black cap-sleeve top and oversized jeans,

and so is everything out my bedroom window. I open

my curtains to the crows, to a scrub jay in the maple. 

Accepting I’ll do death alone like I’ve done most everything: 

birth, growth, forgiveness, hunger, all these freaking feelings.

The other night I danced for the first time in months 

to my favorite Sheryl Crow song—opens with guitar 

and drums. I’ve never been there but the brochure 

looks nice. I used to dance on my paddleboard 

for hours. Ran down all sorts of winding roads, 

getting closer. I could’ve never walked, but I walked

for sixty-two and a half years. Now I look out my window,

envy the dog walkers. Did I ever think I wouldn’t jump in,  

... enjoy the show? Each morning, I looked in the mirror,

said, “You’re sure not your grandma!” Pridefully, smugly

able. When anything went. Now the green’s mostly

what I see from my wheelchair. Getting into the done, I guess

you’d say. A little closer to no more Polish polkas,

no impromptu kitchen waltzing. To not feeling fine.

Maybe I was stained with mercury and malathion.

Maybe that time I ran through the fog of mosquito 

repellent wasn’t the best idea, though we all did it, 

didn’t we? When a friend told me to get a watch 

to keep track of my miles, I didn’t know it would 

become an obsession, that I would go the way

of Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse. No one told me

don’t overdo it. Even if they had I would’ve been

swinging at the scallops, bashing the bivalves.

Wanna have a good cry? For decades I had flashbacks 

I was having another psychotic episode. Fear and Trembling:

isn’t that a great title? I can’t blame my parents or genes

(kinda refreshing). May I free myself, like Insight

Timer instructs, of debris. May I hover like a gull.

Not sure where this is going, though, yeah, 

pretty fucking sure. Pretty not pretty as my 

daughter would say, kinda shapeless and no 

funeral please, no roses or potted begonias. 

Please donate to trawling for fish instead of

netting, to Cornell Lab of Ornithology. When

I stack breaths, I’m reminded it ceases— 

that’s the Hurricane Debby of this thing:

weakening diaphragmatic storms. Inhalations

de-escalating. My nineteen-year-old self didn’t

imagine this. I was learning bird calls, hermit thrush 

and song sparrow. Keeping a list, but also wandering

the forest counting the decades forward, a human

life like alpine snow that seems it will never melt.