lost love

Written by Martha Miller

My heart is beating
fast
scared.
Write about lost love
he says.
All I can think of
is Lisbeth
and how
I lost the little girl
she was
that day
in sparkling summer.
She'd been ill
and was feeling better
then awoke
that morning
saying
Mommy
I don't feel good.
I laid her on the couch
and gave her some Tylenol.
Twenty minutes later
It happened.
She was grey
eyes rolled back
the whites of her eyes now yellow, moist
a faint clicking in her throat
her body stiff
jittery
I yelled to Garry
to come.
Call 911
he said
and somehow
I did.
Waiting on the front steps
for the ambulance
the word epilepsy
playing
in my head.
The ambulance.
The men carrying her out.
Garry rode with her
I followed
in our car
praying
oh god
please
this is not
how I want to grow up
The ER.
Lisbeth
on the stretcher
they'd cut
her pink summer shorts
in half
tubes
down her throat
And Garry.
leaning over her tiny body
her shiny white blond body
her perfect pink six year old body
her blue eyes
shut.
What
(The Fuck)
was happening
wanting to turn and run away
Garry saw it in my face
and said
gently
c'mon Mart.
I walked to the cot
where she lay
and I
began
to sing to her.
I sang all the lullabies
I'd sung to her
when she was a baby.
I knew what my job was
now.
Years later I would dream that Lisbeth's head

was just an egg
an egg that I held in my hand.
The doctors came in and said
that they
could re-attach her head

to her body
but
I saw them look at each other
worriedly
doubtfully.
I saw them do that.
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't put Lisbeth together again.

drawing by Martha Miller