Читать книгу Purity of Absence - Dave Margoshes - Страница 24

The Persistent Suitor

Three days into the treatment,

the chemical teeth gnawing

their way through her veins,

Yvonne passes a bad night,

wrestling with Death, who slips

not under her bed as the demons she feared as a child liked to do but into it, cozying right up beside her, cuddling, hands all over her breasts and backside, foul breath singeing the tender flesh below her earlobes, hardly a gentleman, she thinks, remembering the Emily Dickinson poem she read in university, no, more like the boys she’d fended off that same year, all intellect and hands but more of the latter, she and her roommate would laugh, but, just the same, nothing to be afraid of, and not now, either, despite that stinging breath, the clawing hands, the persistent fingers, no, the old defence still works, the defence of last resort her mother taught her, a knee, doubled up quickly, where it hurts the most, even for Death, not so proud now, not so fearsome. But this is just the fourth morning, days before her hair turns white, before her stomach turns itself inside out, days before the first bouquet of his roses arrives.