Caroline Cahill

In the Dark

Because I blew my power out with a bag
of broken light bulbs as one way to ignore

my utility bills and because the sound
of my neighbor’s TV made me shatter

the bulbs in my sleep, filaments burning
like fire irons. Because a clot rode

through your vessels and when you tried
to say the word stroke, you said, “struck,”

maneuvered your mouth, and “struck,” again.
Because my neighbor, Tina Turner,

not the singer, called to warn you
about the alcoholics in my building,

and because this was after the surgeon
said the aneurysm behind your eye

was the size of a gumball, likely there
since birth. Because you raised six kids

who picked on each other even when we saw
your fingers pinch the headache in the bridge

of your nose over payroll for the family restaurant
or the stew on the stove or the mound of clothes

one of us dumped on your bed so we could
move our laundry into the rotation, knowing

you’d finish it for us. Because I can’t afford
my own washer-dryer and my head is in a fog

of black mold and cat dander and I’m losing
memories of you in my sway between smoking

and drinking and not eating. Because you woke
with the sun to serve and I was sleeping, and now,

at night, I stalk Ocean Boulevard, headlights off,
chasing water illumined by the moon.

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Caroline Cahill’s poems have appeared in Passages North, Hayden’s Ferry Review and Copper Nickel. She earned her MFA in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives in Oregon where she freelance writes, edits, and occasionally farms.