streets ridged with hard-packed snow,
the night Jason fell out the door
of Nate's beat-to-shit black pickup
and rolled like an armadillo, tucked
in his brown bomber jacket. In the theater
of my held breath, I heard bones break,
saw his head strike the ground at just
the right angle. I glimpsed the years
he'd be confined in bed, hours spent
looking at his body from the air above,
but he sprang to his feet unfazed and
goddamn if we did't laugh as he struck
a weightlifter's pose. We walked
into the bar that night, lit like struck matches:
untouchable. But as the layer of years
peeled back Jason found himself in bed
anyway, immured in the muted light
of burgundy curtains. Legs that once powered
a hi-hat and bass drum had withered
to birch saplings beneath a yellow blanket.
Machines whirred while nurses worked
through rotating shifts. Though he grew
to despise ALS, he got his revenge
by vowing to live longer than most.
Some days I think he must dream of flying
out of his body, like a snowbird, invisible
in the air over a cold field of white.
Up there: no hourly change of the feeding tube
or purled spittle sucked from lips; no
nurse rubs an arm or leg. His arms grow
heavy with wings, a small price for the sky.
On days when even light seems freighted
with loss, I think of the choice he made
when it meant life or death: his hours daily met
with the measured hish of intake.
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