A Desire for Sweets Before Death - Lina Buividavičiūtė

I speak to my grandmother for the last time in the hospital.

I’m 24, my son is 3 months old.

I’m full of life, milk streaming from the alveoli

Of my nipples. I show her pictures of my boy

And serve her pie. She hasn’t been eating

Anything sweet for a while. I read the signs,

But I’m full of life, eager to return to my family.

Grandma tells me how cruel the nurses are here,

How they force her into the hospital tub. Until now,

I was the one who bathed her – we’d place a stool

In her bath back at home, and it was much better

than a stranger’s hands, better than a special chair.

And now, at 38, I keep recalling our bath times.

My hands touching her moles, her wrinkly skin,

Her breasts and abdomen sunken with gravity.

Nothing disgusting, but perfect horror and beauty,

Only life itself, streaming through the water, my hands, our bodies.

Will you bathe me, my son? Will you not shy from the organs

That held you close, that fed you, cursed and blessed you?

Will I crave pies? Will you bake me a traditional rye loaf

For my first marriage?

I hope we still have time to prepare everything.

I hope I can bring this horror and beauty to the feast.

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Lina Buividavičiūtė is a poet and literary critic. She is an author of three poetry books in Lithuanian. The poetry book "Dark ages" will be published in Spain this year. Lina is a Pushcart prize nominee and two of her poems won Honorable mention at Writer's digest competitions.