I learned Mary Kay died while I rushed
to the gate at Charlotte’s airport. “Hush, Hush,
Sweet Charlotte” appears in my thoughts like the ax
flying disembodied in the movie’s pivotal scene, blood
splattering Bette Davis’s dress in the summerhouse.
If you don’t know what I am saying, it’s old. I’m old,
and frankly, tired of losing people I love. Tired
of writing elegies, tired of worrying that readers
think I’m incapable of translating joy on the page.
On the flight, the sun has slipped below the horizon
but above the clouds, there’s a lingering
stripe of silver light. Is that you, Mary Kay?
The last time we were together, we held our sides
from laughing too much, playing our made-up women-
writers’ game, inventing sentences with magnetic tiles.
You pulled me aside the day we left the retreat to tell me
how sorry you were that my brother and sister
were dying of cancer. Now, you’re gone. In under a year.
The same bile duct disease as my brother. This truth
wields a weapon that slices through the thick air.
Another unseen killer, another brutal loss.

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