Awful People

He lay on the cedar floor planks

gasping for air like

a fish does for water

she watched him from across the room

filing the rough from her nails

life, she thought, was a ledger

made of assets and losses;

She considered the lake, and the long white boat

those silver parties where she’d learned

to hold her highball glass just… so…

and the way he used to command a room

with his pepper hair and his air of knowledge

an asset, she supposed;

She weighed life insurance he’d insisted on while

he now urged for air,

she thought about the car

that fast little foreign green number

without seatbelts

and the way he would keep beer

in the cup holders and go much faster

than the law allowed

an asset in her youth, now a loss

laying on the floor, like a fish

gasping for water;

She supposed her heart died early

along with his, the space between them in bed

a line of demarcation

a zone of silence

no way to make that an asset

other than it was warmer

than being alone

warmer than he was now,

in his slow throes and ligatures;

She made calls and scheduled her planner

he flopped like a fish once,

and began to fall back into the gray

she imagined her freedom

what it would be like, without him

the bedroom DMZ no longer a divide

the checkbook only one signature

parties where she could impress

with her highball glass just... so...

she thought about assets,

and losses,

the red separated from the black;

as he struggled to breathe

she balanced her ledger.