Property values never go up
and your house and barn
aren’t worth anything,
so that’s a fair market price,
the sheepherder tells my in-laws,
as he hands them
a check for $5,000 
and a document to sign.

You’re promising to rent
the pasture and take care
of our property for all of
our lives? asks the ninety-
year-old former farmer
scratching his bald head.
Of course. The scam man smiles.

So my father-in-law scrawls
his signature on the document
with his arthritic hand. Eighty
three years old, my mother-in-law
and mother of his five children
and fifty grand and great grandchildren
follows suit and silently signs the paper.

II

You’re scamming my parents,
my husband tells the sheepherder.
That’s a ridiculously low price
and property values always fluctuate.
The man disagrees in a voice warm
as the summer sunshine.
Prices don’t change over the years.

Besides I don’t have to buy it,
if the barn or house burn down.
Then it wouldn’t be worth as much.
My husband lights the match.
Then you lied to my folks. The scam
man’s temper flares faster than fire.

You should apologize to the nice man.
He is a church member and he would
not cheat us, says his mother. If you
were raised in the depression like us,
you would see he offered us a lot
of money, his father says in a firm voice.
The guy is swindling you, the son says.
You think we are senile, his father says.

III

Since your father died, the sheepherder
is not paying the rent for the pasture,
my mother-in-law says when my husband
calls to wish her Happy 90th birthday.
Our bishop bawled him out and he took his sheep
and said he wasn’t buying the property
because I ruined his good name.
Good riddance , my husband says.

I saw him in church on Sunday and he said
he would rescind the contract if I give
him his $5,000 back, my mother-in-law says
when we call. The contract states
that is nonrefundable, my husband says.
Do not let him con you into giving it back.
She says, I won’t, and she doesn’t.

Three weeks after she dies, a document 
is recorded at the courthouse stating:
I am ready, willing and able to execute 
the option to purchase contract and it must
close by 45 days as the contract states.
My husband, who has not yet opened
the probate, and I are sunning in the sand
in Acapulco as the scam man waits
at the title company for him to sign
the closing documents and the deed.
                        

This is my thousandth hospital bed
I’ve picked up and my last. The sun
shines on Siamese emerald green eyes 
and carrot orange hair and beard.
I’m off to medical school, he says
dismantling the rails and sides
with his burly body and biceps. 

What is your specialty? we ask
as he hands the blue egg crate
mattress to my husband.
Trauma. Emergency room. Blood 
and guts. I want to be the doctor 
no one wants to see. My husband 
carries the mattress to the bedroom
for the grandkids to sleep on
when they come for the funeral.

Your wife passed? he asks
noting my husband’s white hair.
as he lifts the frame over his head
like he is pressing iron. My mother,
my husband says, She died
in her sleep after her 98th birthday.
My husband holds the screen door.
Holy cow! That’s how I want to go 
but not for sixty-eight years.

He picks up the portable potty
and the folded wheelchair.
Got a toddler and one on the way.
My daughter won’t let me cradle 
her anymore.so I’m ready to hold
Baby Number 2 in my arms.
He carries the equipment as a breeze
blows in through the open door.

My wife says she wants me to die
a week before her so she can be
a widow for only a short while.
My husband signs the paper.
I tell her she better talk to the man upstairs
because I don’t think that’s in his plan.
Waves as he walks away. You folks
have a trauma free life and I hope
I never see either of you again.
                        

I flew higher on the dilaudid drip
than when I was in the helicopter
and the private jet, says the blonde
with turquoise eyes as we watch
the Hospice nurse destroy morphine
and fentanyl after my mother-in-law’s death.

As we eat roasted chicken
and vegetables, she recalls
the sky bleeding blood 
three years ago as she hangs
onto her husband on the Victory
Cross County motorcycle
as they cross the border
from Alberta to Montana.

A truck pulling a trailer
makes a U turn right in front
of the motorcycle blocking it
like a barrier and they slam
into the rig. We had a room
booked in Kalispell. But we
didn’t make it that far.

She takes a drink of Pepsi.
We were wearing helmets
but we hit so hard it knocked
him out and he has no
memory of the crash.
Like a brahma bull rider, 
she busts her back and ribs,
but I remember everything.

The medic in the chopper asking her 
if she is in pain and stabbing
her with the needle twice. Waking
up and screaming, I don’t have a bra.
and the emergency room attendant
showing up with her bag full
of clothes she left on the back
of the motorcycle at the scene.

The surgeon saying my guts
are pushed into my chest
and my belly had a hole
in it and he needs to fix it.
Her sister shrieking, 
He only has a one-star rating
on the internet. He isn’t operating.
Her rich relative showing up
in a private jet and flying her
to University Hospital in Salt Lake.

That wasn’t the only accident
they had on the ten-day trip.
We were just starting out in Bliss
when I heard a whole bunch
of Harleys behind us. Wild Hogs 
hit us bam from behind.
The motorcycle mamas blamed us
and tried to sell us heroin but we
would have none of that nonsense.

She changes the subject abruptly.
Jasper National Park is spectacular.
The Colorado Rocky Mountains
are grand, but the Canadian Rockies
are rockier. She rubs her shoulder
and grimaces in pain. I still hurt
but I’m alive. You should try it.