Lauren Oertel

EXPLANATION FOR MISSING THE AFTERNOON MEETING

I can’t take the meds on an empty stomach. One of my spoons melts away
in the pot of boiling water. Not a trace left to taste in the oats.

The hot shower soothes the aches, but requires standing for too long
without something to hold onto.
I drop a spoon and it swirls around in the soapy water
then vanishes down the drain.

I slump down in the chair, plead for my sopping
strings of hair to style themselves
but they don’t. The dryer blows away a spoon.

Smiling through pain gets easier with practice
I tell myself. People share fun things they did over the weekend.
My time in bed and the accomplishment
of a load of laundry, don’t make for a good story. A spoon
splinters into tiny slivers of metal scattered across my keyboard.

In the next meeting, someone asks how I am.
What can I tell them?
Dull gray dust falls
through my fingers.

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