Gabrielle M. Peterson
Gabrielle Peterson is a Chicago-based writer who has work that has appeared or is forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine, The Huffington Post, Triggerfish Critical Review, Front Porch Review, The Literary Bohemian, Cider Press Review, Connotation Press, Digging through the Fat, and more. She studied art and creative writing at Carleton College in Northfield, MN.
she is angry at the end and
she wakes in the middle of the night and screams
for someone to cut her head off.
my grandmother can barely talk or move but is somehow able to
reach into herself, pull out crudeness
like it is hair caught in the drain.
she is ninety-six and spends her days crying.
every christmas, she wears white.
all of her friends are dead.
she doesn’t socialize much, but she will
take the shuttle to the shopping center,
eat peach sorbet for dessert since
she stopped going to grief meetings.
i am afraid at how life flees,
plummeting fast through a tiny hole.
the roiling breath—residual white bread and milk
that your body never stopped wanting—
it runs as if being chased by some predator unknown.
and we all go,
watching her recoil from the pain of a
carotid artery in the left side of her neck.
it doesn’t surprise the nurses who say this
is often how the body responds to closure:
slowly sedating itself, pulling a veil of black
tulle up to its face so its brain eyes see nothing
but fog. weaning its muscles off of blood
and air like a fiending addict seeking purity.
she is angry at the end and
in this way goes like my grandfather;
confused and indignant
like they both had been cheated out of a life.
like they hadn’t each touched both ends of a century
with their fingertips, nearly.
waiting room, physical therapy, tuesday afternoon
the two women gossip like school children,
mouths catcalling kettles.
they debate the word euphoria.
one holds the other’s knee,
and pushes it to her chest.
this will counteract your hip’s tightness.
what must happen for the body to close?
in a way we are those suctional barnacles
on the bottoms of boats. shameplants.
after the world teaches us its moods,
we turn around,
try to run back to something but can only
find ourselves.
tendons respond accordingly:
muscles tighten. when
the day is long,
the air is cold.
what would you like to be then?
sand. a chrysanthemum.
a long silk ribbon, untied.