1.
If it comes back we’ll get chemo, you said,
not remembering how, even then,
no one wanted chemo for a man eighty-seven
and it was now two years on.
I tried to remind you,
but you took memory for granted; you believed what you recalled.
So no chemo, just whatever made the passage lighter,
But chemo’s the protocol that’s what they all said
Sure—the protocol for someone
with a drop more than fumes in the tank
and so, dear heart, not for you.
2.
When it came back you started dying faster.
You died of not living,
recalling but not remembering,
and kind drugs helped carry you off.
So you talked about chemo, and I sat
silent and heavy in my chair,
seeing the empty room behind you,
knowing the world to come. You were not remembering
we’d already had that conversation with Dr. Patel.
My hand still (remembering) your every dip and curve.
3.
Dr. Patel, so dapper in those custom-fitted shirts
so pleased when we admired
the candy-striped buttons,
the cloth figured with tiny blue flowers,
such noblesse oblige when he praised
the shirt I’d given you for our last anniversary.
Tears stood in his eyes when he told us
I’d make you comfortable.
You’d feel as little as you wanted.
Little was not what you wanted to feel.
Nothing was not what you wanted to feel.
Nothing was never what we wanted.
—From the poet’s latest collection, The Beautiful Leaves (Bamboo Dart Press); appears here with her permission.
is a retired clinical psychologist, former German major and restaurant reviewer, and a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her poems have received Special Merit and Honorable Mention recognition in the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial contest from judges Marge Piercy (2016) and B. H. Fairchild (2013).
Karen’s first complete sentence was, “Look at the moon!” Her work in fairy tales and dream interpretation, and her obsession with Kafka and flirtation with Buber, have led her inevitably to prose poems. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Comstock Poetry Review, B O D Y, CHEST, Rappahannock Poetry Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Spillway. She is the author of a full-length collection, The Book of Knots and Their Untying (Kelsay Books, 2016), and three chapbooks from Kattywompus Press: Burrowing Song (2013), Eggs Satori (2014), and Kafka’s Cat (2019).
The poet shared her life with her late husband for 34 years, which were not enough. The Beautiful Leaves, a collection of poetry about his illness, death of cancer in 2018, and her grief, was released by Bamboo Dart Press in August 2023. She co-curates Fourth Sundays, a poetry series in Claremont, California.
