Treatment is no longer an option.
4.
Rain is falling. Black umbrellas, pink and blue umbrellas, flowered umbrellas,
umbrella with the face of a frog.
Thy name is mud.
She craves chocolate.
Blue, sunken around the eyes, she pursed her lips the way old people do.
Sour milk.
But even when she lost her train of thought, determined to retrieve it,
you could see her drag it back, ribbon of silk like a scarf.
Into her failing, falling body.
It’s spread to her bones.
5.
Lucy said to the doctor, I know this is a trivial question but there’s this red dress I’ve been dying to
wear and my friend is having a birthday party. Can I go to the party for a little while, maybe dance
one dance, go home? No brace?