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DocuSign Envelope ID:3E2A8197-2735-44CA-8810-5AD399233576 <br /> Pam Baggett <br /> 8800 Wilkerson Road <br /> Cedar Grove NC 27231 <br /> 919-732-9403 <br /> nightair@mindspring.com <br /> Days Like These <br /> She's stretched out beneath the pecan tree <br /> on a towel-draped beach recliner when I arrive, <br /> puffing smoke rings that disappear <br /> into the cloudless sky. Bliss of chardonnay, <br /> radio blaring Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys. <br /> Despite the noise, she's three hundred <br /> pages, two thousand years from her backyard, <br /> chariots clattering down cobbled Roman streets. <br /> The neighbor's black Lab shoves past me <br /> to flop at her feet. She takes his sodden tennis ball, <br /> flings it as we talk, her arm snapping harder <br /> at the mention of her mother, who forgets <br /> to eat, locks her out, falls asleep. <br /> In the air between us, the unspoken shrieks <br /> like raucous crows: plunging t-cell counts, <br /> experimental chemos, tumors that shrink <br /> while those in her chest shift and swell, <br /> smoke rings that refuse to dissipate. <br /> Coming weeks when wine won't quell <br /> pain and she'll be too feeble to walk outside, <br /> escape her mother's barrage: What time is it? <br /> How old am I? Were you asleep? <br /> Meanwhile, shocking blue days <br /> like these, she buries herself in books <br /> she refuses to finish, the pages dog-eared <br /> somewhere near the end. <br /> Appeared in Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Spring 2017 <br />