ISSUE: Winter 2004
Last night, Jimmy was still alive. Thin as a kid in his soft green robe.
Everyone happy to help. I figured he’d made it onto the new medicine
in time. You were cooking a big pot of shrimp for friends and nurses.
Our friend Kishio had just drawn the Japanese characters for shrimp
which mean old man because of the creature’s curved back. This time,
Jimmy wasn’t going to die. It might still have been day but the sky was
old. You and I stood beside an open window washing curtains made
from the same fabric Mother Teresa’s nuns wear. As we twisted out
rinse water, the blue and white cloth disintegrated, worn thin from
such a long love affair with light. In your plant-filled rooms, I was
happier than I had been in a long time, looking through all those
unadorned, open windows …
