Highs and Lows - about diabetes - published - Poem: Bernice and the Lunar Eclipse

The Chicago-based lit mag Hektoen International just posted my creative nonfiction piece "Highs and Lows" about my kidney transplant and subsequent acquisition of insulin-dependent diabetes, due to my antirejection meds, Prograf and prednisone.

They asked me to substantially shorten it, which I did, after brewing a cup of coffee.

You know what, Dear Reader?

I kid you not. A good cup of coffee is just about my favorite thing in the world.

Read my true story here. 

You may think I'm on a roll having a few of my stories - and "Nazi Waters" at last - published. Indeed, I am very grateful and proud they've been published.

Yet, some of my best work has yet to be published.

My Jenny - On Good Days I Remember My Name - Uncle Benny's Stradivarius - have yet to find a home.

Just spoke to my friend Carolyn Constable who told me to send my eye doctor the poem "Seven Minutes in Hell" about my experience in the visual field machine.

"Visual field machine." It took me ages to remember that term. Kept getting it confused with "field of vision."

Oh no! I hope I don't forget it again.

This morning I emailed in my entries to Pentimento magazine, HQ'd in Lambertville, NJ, just across the Delaware River from New Hope.

My true story is called The Wrath of Diabetes. I submitted three poems, one of which I wrote this morning in about 45 minutes. It's printed below and is totally fanciful about last nite's lunar eclipse which really could not, in totality, be seen here on Cowbell Road. 

BERNICE AND THE LUNAR ECLIPSE

Ninety-three now, her legs are gone,

so Steve slings her over his back

and carries her into his black

Cadillac with that gorgeous

emblem like the queen’s jewels

that proclaims I’m rich, and

settles her, as she laughs softly,

and thinks, What fun it is being carried by

a handsome muscular man,

reminding her of that wanderlust husband

of hers she lost a thousand years ago.

I get in the back

smelling the still-new interior

leather – oh no! a cow was

sacrificed – and gaze out

the front window. My sister

Ellen, Mom’s caretaker, slides

in next to me, still munching a brownie.

We drive to Woodlawn School

the highest point in the county

and park on the empty street.

It’s well before midnight and

a few people stand on their

sidewalks. Some have flashlights

that pass over their pajama-

clad children.

“Bernice,” says Stevie. “The

moon’s up there,” he points.

“I’m not blind,” says Mom, with

her flashing new front teeth

- expensive as real pearls -

the new dentist drilled in.

Everyone who sees the lunar

eclipse makes a Rorschach

of it. I see it as a round black head

with white ribbons curling all around.

“Let me out,” says Mom.

We look at one another.

“Do it!” I say to Steve and

we all exit onto the silent street.

He opens the huge heavy

door and we stand Mom

up on the sidewalk, a rag

doll, needing support.

“Harold!” she points at the

moon. “Harold, wait for me.

You’re the only man I ever

loved.”

“Daddy,” I think. Yes, he was

a good man. And, were he still

among us, instead of rotting

underground in Cleveland, he

would have driven us here. Wonder

where his 1964 Country Squire

Station Wagon has gone.