The Mask Now

Dying, Dad wanted sunscreen. Nonstop. Frantic if withheld. Would say

screen, and we just did it. Knew he was dying. Was angry.

In last weeks wore red sleepmask over eyes day and night. Would

ride it up onto his forehead for brief intervals, then down, pulled by

hand that still worked. A bit. Sometimes shaking too much so just

cried eyes. Cried now now. Once cried out light — more like a hiss — was

there for that. Yanked it quick. Needed it so badly, the bandage, the

world is a short place, wanted the illustration of it gone, wanted to not

see out, wanted no out. But I am guessing. The vineyards down the slope,

each latent bud beginning to plump. In the distance, mountains. Beyond

sea. All of it distraction, but from what. A waste of what. The red

sleepmask. I should have burned it with the rest but kept it. The pane

made trees look painted on. Silky. Not good silky. In the next valley once,

hammering. Thought it human at first. The woodpeckers went on for

days. A carnival of searching for void. How full void is. Small tufts of

grass growing so that I can keep track. Taking root is not an easy way to

go about finding a place to stay. Maybe nothing would happen after

all. The hollowing-out now added to by crickets. Spiders making

roads in sky. I watch. Look at, then through. What is the empty

part? Where. Can find nothing that is empty. Seems I should, and soon, as

where would he go, or what would the indented place on the bed where

he had been be. Be full of. He was a settler in that flesh, that I could see.

Not far from breaking camp. Wrapping up the organs in their separate

parts — skin rolled away, eyes rolled elsewhere, the fingers tossed

aside — ash, ash — the whole like a dime toss, whom do I love, what part,

what’s in the whom, what’s in the late, is there actually a too late — 

because if there is I do not grasp it. Mask he calls, unable to get into

wheelchair any longer, stares for bit of time into the air out front, past

feet, out the glass door, to the olive tree and fig. Is there fire in the

distance. Squints once back up the ray of light, up, back its long road.

How far. Mask now. The cremation-decision driving its roots through us

all — roots spreading wildly beyond the shadows of the head. “Neighbors”

will continue to feed stump, book says, long after it is cut, will send it

sugars, phosphorous, nitrogen, all the surrounding trees will try, via

fungi, root hairs, send carbon, send enzymes, whole forest hears

stress signals, will mourn, like the elephant — “I’ve wrapped stumps in

black plastic when they’ve refused to die” says Leila, location Wellington,

posted 4 years ago on permagardening. But then guard down. Eyes gone.

A red cotton mask. An old TWA one. Elastic gone. Cries out if it slips off.

Wants blue blanket. Says blue. Angry. Who was not angry. Nothing

enough. Wants to see all daily tests. Read the bloodwork. Wants trans-

fusions which we withhold. Would open him to infection. Would buy no

time. I’m wearing the sleepmask now. I’m trying it on. Rubberband soft

with age. Adding more age. American red. Red full of noise, of artificial

time. Feels like my face is painted on. A spirit. Upturned, ancient, without

expression. An old stream flows alongside. Glimmering tongues promise

the vanishing will be swift. It’s a lie. The periphery disappears but I can

still feel it, our knowing what’s coming a thicket we got lost in — till the

only thing is now — mask my spirit screams — mask now — vacancy

not coming fast enough — before we have to traverse the riddling

disappearances — extinction says the mask — go away now I do not want

to see you any longer — beauty you are too near — too near — I hear a

blackbird and the shoo of air where it lifts off — why won’t you just

go, you circling winds leaves birds systems directions visibles invisibles

honeysuckle limbs and rose gaining self-song, motion, entering this

continuum — oh continuum do not lie to me with this delicate weight of

time, this floating of as ifs and further-ons and all your guides to

dreaming, abundance, the coming true of the true. No. From under here,

listening hard, light feels around me almost visible, doused with

benzene, and time goes away, and my eyes feel on them the small weight,

the minuscule no to things, which I can conjure, which I think I know by

heart, but no, I do not, I need the mask. And it feels like an

idea. We are in a cave now. It is a hundred million years ago. They will

bring the meds again now and the urine pot — he yells for it — but for now

under the mask it is a lowly spot, you can make dawn come

you can feel us inherit the earth, the jay shifts in the tree and you can

hear it. There is little. You hear the little. Hear the head snapped on the

stem. Hear the angel trapped in the stone. Hear pure chance which

sounds like a boy marching alongside an army wanting to enlist. The

year is 1490, 380, 1774, 10 BCE. You hear the outline in the tree — why — 

because it touches the other outlines. If I try to raise the mask the hand

he can barely use flutters angry bird wing at me. Would hit me with

finger wings but too broken. Maybe in Lee’s army, maybe in Grant’s. It

made no difference in the end. Maybe in Caesar’s maybe in Christ’s. The

trillions seem more clear than ever in the day behind the mask. The dark

gray of the fever feels every inch of the bark. Freckled, the pure

proclamations being made by the light. It is not day it is saying, bright as

quicklime, text of flames he can hear — no, not day — day sprawls under

to let us flow through over its parched back. Lies flat. Lie flat day he

thinks under the red mask. Spread yourself over us light, the dead at

Antietam yes his people, both sides, the cufflinks in the drawer he will

not see again — they were Lee’s he would say — they were Grant’s — I saw

the will of the Davis side — I did — he says, smell of gravel coming from

the path, day sitting now over us like a lioness. It is neither dark nor

light. As if you are the place where the branch was sawed off — that place

on the oak — and air silently touched your new raw end. You put it on,

you pull it down, and then effort, enlistment, singing, and you are given a

fine practitioner’s absence, you are a purpose surrounded by chance, a

hole in chance. You can feel the clouds move over the sun from here. You

can hear the sun return and insect-hum spray up. You can lie still and feel

this is the ultimate price. You feel it getting paid. By you. It is you.