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Have Mercy
Kathryn Paul

I hope this happens to you! she hissed, glaring
across the divide from the passenger seat where
I made her ride after we took
her keys, but before we sold her car.

I turned away, turned the key, turned the corner,
knew she would forget in a moment.
She did—but I have not.

Now I am the angel of death. I administer
morphine, atropine, Haldol, merciful drops
under her tongue. I chart the hours and
milliliters, suction phlegm, wipe her bald
head, careful not to wake her. I watch the
slow rise and slower fall of her sheet,

so like a shroud already.

I hope your children are just as unloving
as you! she lashes at me from the past.
I am not unloving, I whisper to her
emptiness. I am helping you die.

—
Kathryn Paul is a survivor of many things, including cancer and downsizing. Her poems have appeared in Intima: Journal of Narrative Medicine, Rogue Agent, Hospital Drive, The Ekphrastic Review, Lunch Ticket, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Pictures of Poets, and Poets Unite! The LiTFUSE @ 10 Anthology. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Oak by Ashley Knowlton
Why My Mother Never Trusted Me by Paul Fericano

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