How I Couldn’t Help

I couldn’t let her wet her pants in bed,

though I wished to, once, the night

she woke me every hour with the bell

she clanged to call home her goats,

only to ask if she’d eaten lunch,

or if the dead sister sang

in the kitchen, or to whisper

the pain was back but she didn’t know

where, what kind, or in which language,

and would I please give her too much morphine

so she could fall asleep the right way.…

Read the rest