I have watched them dance around their inhabitant bodies.

Glowing and revealing the secrets their owners tried to hide.

Broken souls, befriend painted smiles.

The face says nothing.

The soul is what I peer into.

My gnarled hands move across the controls of the Cessna 172 Skyhawk, eyesight fading now, cataracts covering one almost entirely.   The slight shake of my Parkinson's Disease clearly visible.  My wife, tears of pain in her eyes, holds my hand, bringing it to her lips for a tender kiss.

60 years of happy marriage, 3 kids, 7 grand kids, and 4 great grand kids so far, but this decision was for us.  My wife's cancer was back, and this time there would be no cure, no months of painful chemo, no watching her become a living skeleton, again.

We'd updated our wills, sold our properties, set up trust funds, and now all we had was this plane, and photographs of our family in front of us.

They'd warned us not to fly so far North, to avoid the storm raging over the Mountains, but we knew our own minds, we had the means, and the ability to decide our own fate.  I pull back the control stick, taking the plane higher, through the clouds, the beautiful sunlight shining through.

"I love you," I speak, the first words in an hour.

"And I love you."

I push the controls forward, making the nose of the plane point towards the ground far below, letting gravity and the Lycoming O-360 engine do their thing.  The plane accelerates beyond 300 km/h, we take off our safety harnesses, engulf each other in a long and perfect, yet final embrace.

We are sitting in a sunlit café. The aroma of coffee wafts its way up my nose and, into my brain, seeping into my thoughts. He sits across from me, his beer belly kissing the sharp edge of the table. He burps, wipes his greasy fingers on the napkin and stretches his hands out.

I try to quell the rising waves of nausea; try to stop pictures of crisp paper wilting under the weight of lard floating across my mind.

He clears his throat and looks at me pointedly. I will have to hand it over to him eventually.

I take a deep breath in to prepare myself then push through my sternum, reaching deep into my chest. My heart scuttles about, dodging my searching fingers, hiding behind one lung then behind the next. It knows it’s about to come up under inspection, and is quickening at the thought. I manage to catch it finally; there is a tug of war: I win, and pull it out.

The excruciating part is just about to begin.

Carefully, holding it in both hands, I lean across the table, and place it in front of him.

Please don’t get grease stains on it.

He tilts his head side to side: looking at it from every angle. He lifts it, bounces it up and a down a little: checking its weight. There is silence, then a “hmm” of consideration from him. My nerves are tingling, burning; restless, they want their companion, my heart, back, and quickly. I try to not let the ache show. Stoic, professional.

He places it back on the table; takes out a microscope; polishes its lens. Examines its quickly beating surface, spending time over every crevice, considering every scar. A gem cutter analyzing the raw material he has to work with. Every time he pauses at a fault line, a river of panic bubbles up inside me.

A quick look of disappointment flicks across his face. He shakes his head: no.

We do not exchange words. He places it back on the table; quietly. Gets up, swings his satchel over his shoulder; and walks out of the café without looking back. On to the next.

I pick my heart up again: it feels heavier, more leaden than before. I slip it back into my chest: it’s eager to go in; almost rushes out of my hands in its haste to get back behind the protection of my ribs. I sew my chest back together, get up, walk back out into the bright sunlight. Another ordeal over.

(for my granny, who battled with Alzheimer's)

if love is supposed to be without boundaries
then why do i feel so bounded 
within these lapses of memory.

i confused the toilet for the paper this morning
and ended up cleaning up the runs because of it.

i poured whiskey on the floor to desanitize it
because it is the best alcohol.

i rounded up my collection of fears
and ran off to try and unbundle them and
throw them out of my skin.

What hath man tainted?

Angels’ wings spotted with black

Charcoal gray feathers

The mask kissed my cheeks

Happy you cannot see through

My lovely façade

I'm struggling, petrified of the dark, entwining branches of the tree of life

which are ambushing me, squeezing the red blood from my veins and the air that I breathe from my lungs. I am running, without moving, as I am crucified and impaled on the sharp threatening twigs. I fathom in my deepest center of my being that there can be no escape. The live oak tree is layered with Spanish moss, trapping mites which take hunks out of my skin with greedy little scissor mouths. It absorbs my nutrients by sucking my body fluids with glee and abandon.

The hovering crown of the tree absorbs dust and particles from the polluted air which I gulp hungrily but also prohibits the rain from reaching my thirsty open mouth. I am so parched that it compresses my bones and twists my organs. The leaves of the massive tree use the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water from the soil into sugar and oxygen. I watch as the ominous tree greedily absorbs the sugar and stores it away without allowing me to get so much as a mouthful. I gasp as I attempt to absorb oxygen before it is released to the sky but am unable to claim its largesse.

I can’t comprehend why the tree is so reluctant to share its bounty, insisting on entrapping me in its web of roots and branches.

I remember from my science classes, which I mostly ignored, that the tree has heartwood in the middle but why is there no beating heart to support me?

I watch in utter horror as the cambium tissue grows another thin layer adding a covering to the tree, ambushing and enmeshing me in a thin skin. I slap and whack this quagmire but it won’t let me go. I sense the sticky encroaching sap which accosts my skin, gluing me to the tree. The sinister bark encapsulates me in its coat of armor.

“Please,” I beg, “release me from this torture and let me seek the cool earth which will blanket me with its warmth, allowing me to sleep the deep slumber. I no longer desire to be part of this intimidating world.”

I close my eyes and accept my impending death with gratitude.

   One rainy summer day my mother drove me to our local library. Browsing through the books on the shelves, my finger paused on a dusty copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Curious, I settled down in my favorite corner and cracked open Carroll’s classic. Instantly, I was transported to this whimsical world called Wonderland. I vividly remember falling down that rabbit hole. I saw what Alice saw. I felt what Alice felt. In the pit of my stomach, I developed that flip-flop feeling. Reaching in front of me, I grabbed a jar in freefall. This was my first taste of orange marmalade. I recall that little mouse Alice and I frightened off. “Ou est ma chatte?” was the first French phrase I ever learned.

      This enchantment did not end here. Lewis Carroll kept me enthralled with his amusing poems and clever puns. Have you ever attended an atypical tea party with a dormouse, a mad hatter, and a march hare? I have, and let me tell you, I’m still scratching my head over “why is a raven like a writing desk?” I haven’t the slightest idea. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay longer at the tea party, because my mother was calling for me. Time to go home. Not quite ready to depart so soon from Wonderland, I closed the book carefully and presented it to the librarian. I smiled, handing over my golden library card.

“This is a wonderful book,” she said.

And still to this very day, I concur.