In the morning I go outside to smell the ground because it rained in the night, the first time in months, and the rain is a novelty that won’t stay that way for long, as novelties do.

And it has grown dark in this house, pockets of dark you never knew. The dog goes back upstairs after her morning meal, back to bed. And we’ve closed the windows, brought in the patio pillows.

But across the street the neighbor is loading his car like he’s going somewhere, you can tell by his demeanor. I’d be like that too, flaunting it, if I was going somewhere.

There’s still a good helping of summer left and some like this part the best. Like picking the last bits of meat off the bone, the parts most ignore.

And I’ve laid in the sun longer than it makes sense to do just because I can, and the warmth on my skin feels good, cancer be damned.

When I’m gone they’ll put me in a box or a bag and carry me around feeling sad for a time, then relieved once they empty me over a beach or a lake and tip back a drink and remember what they can of me, the way we remember our favorite seasons or the holidays, or a car that cost too much to maintain.

And death, you are in the dark pockets of this house giving form to my emptiness. You’re hiding in the back seat of my car when I’m loading it for a weekend away. You’re the last bite I take before dropping the bone, the rain that came in the night and no one noticed.

Categories: prose, writing

Tags: death, prose