Marie-Claire

she called me by another name

—

the curtain kept parting

not by the nurses
not by the draft

but by her hand

again
and again—

as if that thin veil
were all that remained
between one world
and another

—

she called me
Marie-Claire

with such certainty
it entered the room
before I could answer

again—

Marie-Claire

as though a daughter
might be summoned
by repetition alone

—

I did not correct her

somewhere
the given name loosened

something older
took its place

—

her eyes were
that milky blue
certain old age carries

not dimmed
but thinned—

as if light
had been passing through them
for years

—

the ward was loud with metal
fluorescent
full of wheels
voices
rubber soles

but all of it fell away

there was only
the space between our beds
the curtain
half drawn
and the shadow of her hand
searching across it

—

when I took it
the scale changed

not the room
not the hour

only the measure
by which one body
finds another

—

her hand—

so light
so cold

I thought of winter branches
of bird bones
of those small creatures
the body shelters
without ever meaning to love

—

she had thrown off the blanket

the wrists were fastened
for her safety
or for the world’s

I did not ask which

I only covered her again
as one covers a child
or an old wound
or a lamp
one does not want
the wind to find

—

she was speaking

I could not gather
all the words

but the eyes
were perfectly clear
in the way grief is clear
or weather
or the face of someone
who has wandered too far
to keep pretending
they are not lost

—

Marie-Claire

again

and in the saying
something opened

not memory
not mistake

a crossing

for a moment
I was the one
she had been reaching for

and she—

not herself
not someone else

but a life
returned

—

I have seen those eyes before

that same childlike blue
unguarded

as if the body, nearing its edge,
gives back
what it borrowed for living

—

the curtain moved

the room resumed

but not entirely

something had passed
between us

some filament
too fine for speech

left there—
like warmth in a sheet
after the body rises

—

arles / urgences
late march

—rb