The Linnet's Wings Summer 2014 | Page 63

Two beige silk shirts, a pair of slacks, scarf I gave her when her hair. Gifts from Stan when she died that April. It feels like yesterday. Pink tulips on the bedside table, petals falling, arm across Stan’s chest. Her quiet breath. Then in, then no, then out, then not. Spring in its extreme ephemerality. 3. Yellow with jaundice, beginnings of growing back black hair on her head, she could hardly open her lavender eyes. Very thin, except the hands all distorted with swelling, resting on two small pillows. Lucy, I’m thinking about you all the time, I said. She said, think harder. Songbirds, according to the morning paper, are not after all in decline. She craves birds.