It is Saturday.
I am being pushed and shoved out of bed.
I wake up to the sound of crushing ice
only to realize a plastic bag’s shifted
against flaky cream walls, outside
the rusty grills of my window.

I turn over, pick the salt and lemon drink Ma
made from the cement floor, take a whiff of
the lemon, the short, sweet lemon scent
which has snatched the room’s
stench away for a while

It is 3 A.M.
The alarm-sized heart knows and blares its alarm.
I think Anabella’s on the rocking chair so I run
down like hell. Nothing’s better than an old
   depressive lady       
            pushing you
                        down a long
                                    windy staircase.

                                    But you can’t feel the fall.
                                    God knows you tried saving the day.

It is like a dirge for the living.
I’m in a public park with a fear the
world is ending today. I just said “no, no,
no, no” and I don’t know what happens next.

You tell me to hold on. I hymn songs when alone.
I grab the side of the bed to feel that holding on to
hold on

I pray for gentler visions to feed the animal in me,
pray for no aged, no sore, torn bone. We can go shrink
infant-like, wear a new pair of lens, ask ‘Why’s the sky
blue? and ‘Why should I do that?’ We can go back to sleep,
turn a blind eye to that grim reaper knocking on our windows,
showing up with silver scalpels and sedatives and a fist-full-of-
rage instead of a wielded scythe into our houses.

I pray we wake up next morning to say the CPRs worked.
That we rouse in an April lilac mess of tuberoses for a cemetery.
That the lady in nightmares never catches us; we did not see her face.
That the grim reaper comes silently with sunflowers from the neighbour’s
garden instead. “Shhh!” He’ll say, “The watchmen never saw me.” and “You
can never have enough of life.” I hope the ground cares of each of us cold bodies
down on the heated earth. No June sun gifts freezing or winter’s breath. I remember
Ma’s advice from ages ago to face the left-hand side and spit three times to blow aside
the shaitaan sitting on your shoulder. I look at the pale blue bucket near my side, nearly a
quarter full. I pray that we remember not.