Diane Ehlers

Diane Ehlers

Two Hairs

Just two hairs

On the back of the chair

Where he sits.

I touch them, the symbols of what is

And what will be.

Two hairs now. There will

Be more.

It will all fall out,

The nurse said.

For now,

It's just two hairs. They

Won't be missed.

Everything still looks the same.

Nothing is the same.

April 9, 2004

Life Is

Life is all the little details.
It’s bank statements
and bad dreams,
leaky faucets and
letters in the mail.
Life is going to church
and going around in circles. We ask
the big questions, and lose
our glasses.
Life is getting old, getting creaky, and getting
on with it.

Life is falling asleep watching television and

waking up at three in the morning

for no reason.

It’s all about the “look at me” feeling when we’re wearing

new clothes.

It’s sorting, choosing, arranging,

wiping, sweeping, washing, drying, folding,

putting away, throwing away.

It’s getting a good haircut.

It’s getting a bad haircut.

Life is eating ice cream from a cold spoon.

Life is phone calls and finding things

under the couch and way down in the cushions.

It’s good friends and cheap wine. Looking at old

photos. Laughing at old jokes. Riding the maverick waves

of our familiar ocean.

May 11, 2005

Second Shift

It stays just off to one side, a blurry

shape in my peripheral vision, disappearing

when I turn to face it. Pain wears

a brown paper bag over its face, but it’s

in there. It lives in the refrigerator, in the shower.

It sits with me at the breakfast table.

Respite, when it comes, comes in measured

doses – an hour or maybe two, but pain

has the second shift. It sits looking at me, waiting

in the cupboard for me to select my supper. I

shut the door on it, but never quickly enough.

It’s in the drawer with his socks, the socks I don’t

know what to do with. It writes its

name in the dust

that settles on forgotten things.

March 17, 2005

Chipmunk

The first time I saw it

it didn’t look dead. It looked

like it was sleeping.

But chipmunks don’t sleep

on the road like that, and

I knew that it was dead.

The next day it looked dead,

but it had moved a little bit,

perhaps flipped by

a passing car or nosed

by a curious dog. It was

surely dead, and it was right where I walk

every day. And every day

I am surprised to see it,

nearly stepping on it. I

can’t look away from it, noting

the flies hovering and the guts

spilling out. It must

have been run over again.

And it keeps happening. Every day,

I walk and there it is,

more certainly dead than

the day before.

I forget, and then remember

that it is there, right

where I want to put

my foot.

And I must look at it.

October 19, 2004

A Year of Black

Perhaps we have lost some of our wisdom
The wisdom of a year of black.
Black: the mourners’ badge. It cut a swath
for them through the burdens of society.
One year of grace.
Everybody knew what it meant. Today the badge
is gone. Veils are out; black is merely a fashion choice.
But something about the year remains – a tribal memory,
an arbitrary notion – something.
I wear my year as a mental clamshell, covering me,
protecting me in its hard curve, even as I move
toward the edge. Outside the shell, the light ismore penetrating, more revealing.
Responsibilities, real or imagined, gather to claim me
as I emerge, blinking.
Ready or not.
How about not?
Inside my virtual clamshell, I co-opt a state of grace:
No excuses are needed, no request is automatic, no
assumptions are made. This year is about me.
Deference, murmured condolences – all mine.
Concerns about my well-being are my due.
I might as well be wearing all black as I lurch
my way through the few days of indulgence
I have remaining.
It’s my year. I won’t be given another.
The black is replaced by color.
The clamshell opens.
The light glares.
Ready or not.
I’m not.

Diane Ehlers

Dec. 13, 2005

January 18

It’s 6:15 a.m. Should

I be doing something?

Somebody would have to tell me

what. Three years ago

at 6:15 I watched him

take his last breath.

Today at 6:15, I’m taking

out cans and newspapers

in the recycling bins.

Is that what it means to move on?

January 18, 2008

For Stephanie

It seemed to me

you would always

be there, somewhere

close, driving around

in that ridiculous/wonderful

car, all tail fins and attitude,

and I would come around a corner, unsuspecting,

and see you on the perpendicular:

You going one way and I another.

But then there would always be that day, when we were

just somewhere. (It has to be Big City Bread, of course)

and you weren’t rushing off and neither was I and

we could have a cup of coffee.

And talk about the things that people talk about when they wrap their

hands around the mug, the

excuse to linger.

I don’t know what will

happen to the car. Can it

make the trip to Mexico?

I’ll look for it still,

rounding corners.

And I’ll miss the possibility of

the chance encounter, the

times when coffee slows us

down and we are simply there.

Fall 2007