YOU MUST BE A SAINT

By: Linda Drach

That’s what they say, the friends who hear him bark

when I leave for the gym or buy the wrong soap,

the ones who glimpse the shit stains, who balk

at the thought of so much toenail trimming.

But how can they know? Martyrdom

is not my calling. It’s just a sticky vat I fell into.

My beloved is dying – and I fret

about my fat and fuss over the dusting.

My suffering beloved says he wants to kill himself

and then we bicker about dinner.

Each disagreement starts with skillful, textbook framing:

When you said [fill in the blank], I felt [fill in the blank] because I need to feel [fill in the blank].

But things devolve quickly. He yells, I know – but I’m dying!

I know! I shout back. But you don’t have to be such a dick about it!

I keep a rat on a leash in my chest. Tethered like a vacuum,

it lives on crumbs – gobbles them up with waxy tongue

No one knows. And no one hears me crying hard in the car,

radio loud to crowd out my pleas – oh God, oh God –

how can I ever be forgiven for forgetting to love,

for wasting the time we have left?

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LINDA DRACH is a poet, public health policy analyst, and volunteer writing group facilitator for the nonprofit Write Around Portland. Her poetry has been published in CALYX, The Write Launch, Clackamas Literary Review, The Timberline Review, and elsewhere. She is the current poet-in-residence of a small house set in a grove of Doug Fir, where she has an audience of one human and one exceptionally attentive pug.