why I wrote my first living will
By C. E. Laine

For Carol Elaine

why I wrote my first living will
it was not the way a tube was jammed
into her throat like a drinking straw
shoved through the plastic lid of a frozen malt

it was not the last remark
she scribbled onto the message board
because words were unavailable

it was how her hands were tied
to the stainless-steel bed rails
after they took away her black marker

Originally appeared in Stirring v3e10, written under the name Kit Sullivan.

C. E. Laine's work has appeared in many publications, including Poems Niederngasse, New World Poetry, Free Zone Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Countless Horizons, The White Shoe Irregular, Bay Review Liberal Arts Journal, Friction Magazine, 2River View, Kota Press, Absinthe, Stirring (writing as Kit Sullivan), The White Shoe Irregular, Clean Sheets, Erosha, Beauty for Ashes, Ludlow Press, Melic Review, The Adirondack Review and Pierian Springs. She has written two books of poetry: "allegory" (ISBN: 0-595-22462-8) and "The Weight of Dust" (ISBN: 0-595-26943-5). They are available at celaine.com . She is a writer and a student pilot. She divides her time between writing and flying old airplanes. She avoids the mundane whenever possible, with the exception of making lists. She is a student pilot, a realtor, and a web designer when she isn't writing. In the past, she's been magician's assistant, a baker, an extra in a few movies, a licensed artist in New Orleans' French Quarter, and a soldier in this girl's U. S. Army. She lives in a creaking old Virginia home, conveniently ruled by seven cats. She enjoys making lists on sticky notes when she isn't writing poems.