BEATRICE

•

We had spent all day
at the chemotherapy clinic.
I expected—
I don't know what I expected—
a hospital, a torture chamber,
a prison?

Instead, it was like a beauty salon,
with intravenous machines instead of hairdryers,
and spaces around each of the women,
reading fashion magazines.

"What are you in for?" one woman asked Beth.
It was like the scene in the movie Alice's Restaurant
when the guy in the jail cell
asks Arlo Guthrie.
"Stage Four Breast Cancer," she said,
and then the woman looked away.

We took the train home,
not saying much.
We had spent all day at the hospital.
I had watched the boats chugging up the river.
She had looked at the fashion magazines.
What was there to say?

Later, at home, I was tired, so tired,
I wasn't the one who had cancer,
Beth did, I didn't know how to talk about my problems,
everyone was asking Beth about her problems,
no one asked me about my problems.
I did the dishes and fell asleep.

I dreamed there was a river between us.
There must have been a terrible storm during the night.
The river had grown higher and higher
and overflowed its banks.

Beth was waving to me from the other shore.

Suddenly I realized the river had overflowed
the street in the town where I grew up.
I could see in the distance the elm tree
I had played in as a child.
Hanging from a branch
I could see in the wind
the ancient swing.

Higher and higher the water rose.
I was afraid she would be swept away,
so I tried to wade across the river to save her
but the current was too strong, I had to turn back
or be swept like the furniture swirling by.

Beth just kept waving with an odd kind of peace.

On my right side was a forest, dark and green.
Maybe I could run through the forest
and cross the river further upstream,
I thought.

But before I got far,
there were packs of wolves,
blocking my path.
I could see their yellow eyes glinting
in the trees. They looked nasty and mean.

I awoke
in a cold sweat, shivering.
Beth asked what
the matter was,
it was four o'clock in the morning,

we had to work the next morning
and it was time to sleep.

I told her about the dream
and the wolves
and the vision of her waving
to me from the other shore

as the furniture streamed by,
the elm tree and the swing,
Beatrice meets the Mona Lisa
against the backdrop
of the river's thunderous roar,

"I want to cross over and save you,
but the current is too strong
and the forest nearby is full
of wolves who will eat me
so I better wait until the river
goes down."

"Yeah," she said.
"You better wait."
"So I'll wait," I said,
"I'll wait until the river goes down."

"Good, you wait.
It will come down sometime."
she said sleepily.
"Yeah, I'll wait until the river
goes down, "I said again.

Then I remembered it was four o'clock,
and we had to sleep if we were to work
the next morning,
the doctors and the appointments
and the relentlessness
of the week.

As we closed our eyes
we held each other's hand.
It was like a bridge we were building
over the river between us;

a bridge over the wolf-filled forest
and the swirling river
and all the currents of grief.

I remember the rustle
of the wind in the leaves
and the chimes of a church bell
in its tower.

A cricket sang
in the grass outside.
A screen door banged
on its rusty hinge.

Then, the sound
of a car horn honking
in the city distance, holding hands,
we fell asleep.