The Almost Dead Old Flame, and: Keeping It Together Cathy Carlisi (bio) The Almost Dead Old Flame I figured you might be trying to die when my headache stayed for a week. I thought of you out of nowhere and suddenly wondered if someone would call or if I’d find out after your grave greened over. Your wife finally texted, said they don’t know why you can’t stand, why your eyes roll back. But I know there’s part of you that’s starving for you to spit out the words that fear keeps dry and quiet. Words that soften and sour in the dark. Before you let the doctors stick an iv in your heart, say it, that you tried to finish yourself once because there was a cave that nearly swallowed you whole when you were a boy, and a man, a stranger, took you from you. That black and blue smoke from that cave keeps reigniting itself like a film rolling backward and the flame burns you up, makes you curl at your edges [End Page 108] from the heat of it all. Say that it devours your will to eat a strawberry or push the small back of a child on a swing. The cliché in film: they pound the chest of someone whose eyes have gone stone, breathe dammit! Maybe you could use a good whack that cracks a rib trying to God the life back into you. Or is mouth to mouth, a tongue, red ring of breath pressing enough to make you rise again? Keeping It Together After twenty years, it’s not about his jokes, his ass in jeans, even a feeling of calm inside his hand when you hold it. It’s about the small house with the green trim, the wicker basket stuffed with salamis and bread; it’s about watching her face when she sees the dish of cookie crumbs beside the pogo stick and skates. It’s the pug, the schnauzer, the angelfish, betta fish, snails, [End Page 109] the photos from Rome, watching the tide rise from a small porch in Maine, Billy Joel’s greatest hits. It would have to be a black eye, a blackjack habit, crack, to divvy up scrapbooks, days with your child— to unravel, knot by knot, the Oriental rug beneath your feet. [End Page 110] Cathy Carlisi Cathy Carlisi’s poetry has appeared in the Mid-American Review, Southern Review, Atlanta Review, and many others. She is president and chief creative officer at Brighthouse, a consultancy that serves organizations that serve society. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter. Copyright © 2015 University of Nebraska Press