My house is a museum,
husband’s pottery──teapot, bowls, mugs
lined up on the coffee table,

Mexican photos on the wall;
a skeleton, fish market,
the vendor, holding a shiny carp,  

I keep thinking of the Frank O’Hara line,
Here we are and what the hell
Are we going to do.

I walk on tiptoe
like a small girl trying to behave
so she won’t be punished.

I remember him looking at me 
with desire. The sky is blue,
there is ice on the windows.
                        

The sun will forget to set.
I won’t be here,
my suitcase already packed.

It’s the new kind, on wheels 
you can push in any direction.
Crushed by rocks 

of silence, I hate death, 
can’t turn my back on it.
Living alone 

is a type of dying.
But with a fringe of sun,
my heart lifts.

I stuff my loneliness
into a blue bottle,
let it float out to sea.
                        

I know it is dangerous,
but I stand on a step stool,

to reach the kitchen cabinet’s highest shelf.
Opened macaroni and lasagna boxes, 

Abuela’s Mexican hot chocolate,
teabags stuffed into a baggie 

from my son and his girlfriend
with strange flavors like coconut burgundy

What am I looking for up in the rarified?
A view of my life?

A jar of figs in heavy syrup 
I’ll never eat?

Whoever I am in this last stage 
I haven’t fallen.