To your health
She forgot to send her payment —
a single check to the company
never put in the envelope
hidden under a stack of worthless
receipts, appointment cards, electricity bills.
Everything matters
but this one more, at least today.
And because the check did not arrive,
her policy was canceled.
She who had given up her ovaries
came face to face
in the ring, with illness
and had emerged the winner, now had no bar
to hold onto, no pillows to fall back on
no parachute
no net below.
We two old friends of more than twenty years
sit at a table in a cafe
talking of our lives, our homes,
books we’ve read
people almost forgotten,
purses with zippers
jump ropes
kitchen counters
projects abandoned.
“How’s your health now, Lucy?”
“I’m crossing my fingers,”
she says.
“That’s all I have until they pass that bill.”
Lynne Sachs