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MON COEUR
In French, you don’t say “I miss you,” you say “tu me manques,” which is closer to “you are missing from me.
Like an organ, a limb, or blood itself, how essential you were to my body— In hospice, it wasn’t a metaphor when I said you were taking half my heart with you. What’s left of it is still beating, but faintly, faintly.
Many people wished me joy at Christmas this year. How could they not know that joy is far away, inhabits another country, one where my passport isn’t any good?
Whenever one of us traveled, we would try to look at the moon at the same time each night, its pearly light, a strand that tied us together. Now it’s just a cold stone.
One part of me still thinks you’re on a business trip and will be home soon. Mais c’est impossible. Tu me manques. Every day, I get out of my empty bed and put on my game face, go to the grocery store, pay bills.
Which is difficult to do, with only half a heart that goes on beating anyway, lub a dub. Lub a dub. Barbara Crooker |
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