Harvey and Rita
"Harvey. You should have had that coat dry-cleaned.
Oy vey. You look like a bum." Red-glazed fingernails
smooth the collar below his loose-jowled face,
his eyes sloping downward like liquid memory.
Her beefy figure in red wool folds his reflection
into the glass door of Oncology. His thinning shoulders
cannot support the unwelcome bulk
of trenchcoat. He wishes he had zipped out
the pile lining.
Rita would do that for him
when they got home. Rita would
hand him the Times crossword today
while the IV dripped toxins into his
disappearing frame.
Rita would ask the doctor
all the right questions. Rita would order
the crank-up bed for the living room, and the oxygen.
Rita would tell their friends.
"For God sakes, Harvey, look at those shoes.
They are absolutely falling apart. Sheesh!
We'll go to Florsheim tomorrow."
He watches the lab assistant draw blood,
thinking of how sweetly and easily
the crimson line flows through the transparent tube,
making the empty full, the glass alive.
Page(s) 10
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The