“O”
Mary KarrThis content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Audio: Read by the author.
I was pushing seventy and so was he
when his tall body stepped into the kitchen
air shimmering with garlicky gumbo.
And I stepped inside his lineated arms
and tilted my face up. How encircled I was.
The whole sparkling metropolis
around us revolved. Everything
rose up for the first time.
His tongue plush on the roof of my mouth,
our names undone. He looked
through round spectacles and eyes spiked gold
staring far back into me like Dr. Chekhov
from eternity’s dust jacket.
I was fifteen maybe, or a hundred.
We wondered at each other. I joked
did I need a note from his wife to kiss
back. He said no, which was the first lie.
The doorbell rang, guests whose raincoats
I shook off. That was it, the start of it, ending.
On my deathbed, I’ll exhale his name:
O, here is my mouth.