Courtney LeBlanc

I've Planned Your Death For Years

When your kidneys shut
down and a machine began to filter
your blood: 8-hours, three times
a week, a day after to recover –
your life an exhausted cycle
of hope and despair.

When a new-to-you
kidney was sewn into your body,
your dead, gray kidneys pushed
aside to make room
for the bright-with-blood
imposter.

When five years later,
with the kidney you named Rose
in honor of the woman who gave
it – humming happily inside
your body, you felt a different
pain. Blood in your urine,
coughing, cancer. I knew
the drugs dripped into
your vein might attack
the kidney as well, that
beautiful bloody organ
might not survive.

Eight years later and every time
we speak I ask about your latest
doctor’s appointments. You brag
about the miles you log
walking on a treadmill, the reduction
in pills, your low cholesterol.

When you turned seventy,
twenty years after I first started
planning, I finally gave up.

Flying

The wheels spin beneath us
and then, the whoosh of air
as we lift off, tires tucking
into the plane’s belly
as we climb into the clouds.
The sun sets behind us
as we ascend, moving further
into darkness as we shoot
forward in the atmosphere. I left
you behind, the sun still
setting on your face as you
watched my plane disappear.
You’ve asked for no promises
but I still feel the ache
of wanting to give you everything
as I watch the island grow
small below me. I wonder
how long you stood
watching the sky, following
the plane with your eyes till
it was a dark spot against
the darkening blue that disappeared
when you blinked.