Sydney Shulman-Arno

After you died, I had to dissect the material
evidence of your decay:
bottles of experimental drugs the hospital
wanted back, nausea tablets, reams of gauze,
a stolen box of sterile Pyrex vials into which
you dropped lit cigarettes to save for later.

Exhuming your search history
implicates a criminal negligence:

chronic headache why
dizzy for no reason
cant stay awake why
brain tumor signs
ways to prepare your child for your—

It was a game to you, showing me all
the ways your fingernails were peeling off,
teeth rotting out of your head,
the transplant scar grimacing under protruding ribs,
and me, woozy with all the ways one could fall apart.

Still, saved in the Cloud are moments
in that big empty house
where you spent your last months
alone: orange light filtering through
the kitchen window. The alien insects who
were your kindest neighbors and closest friends.
A garden, framed by purple wildflowers
pushing up through the grass.