A Way to Live and a Way to Die

“Leave something sweet and something in the mouth of the world.”

I lost my dear friend Emily Levine (October 23, 1944–February 3, 2019) just like Measurementwhen he took the first line of consent, he was released. This book could not exist without him, and it never will Atmosphere in Verse – several years before, Emily had opened the door to the world of poetry for me in an event of humorous depth that symbolizes her unique and irreplaceable spirit, which I recounted with great love and little embarrassment for about fifty minutes from the beginning. Atmosphere in Verse.

After her final diagnosis in 2016, I started taking Emily occasionally naturally. We called them poetry retreats – weekends of uplifting, moving conversations, creative cooking (one example included a thallus of kelp collected from low water, which we had used as a dog leash before eating it), and reading sweet poems, which we recorded on the phone as gentle reminders from these precious hours, not fully realizing the bitterness at the time.

This poem, first published in The Sun in 2010, it is the last poem Emily reads in the last poetry book three weeks before she returns her star to the universe.

VACANT TENANTS
by Anna Belle Kaufman

When my mother died,
one of her honey cakes was left in the fridge.
I couldn't bear to see it disappear,
so it waited, it was forgiven,
in its ice cave behind metal trays
another two years.

On my forty-first birthday
I took it out,
rectangle resurrection,
he lifted the weight from my palm.

Before it melts,
I saw, with a sharpened knife,
very small pieces –
The Jewish Eucharist.

Amber squares
and their light windows are walnuts
tasting – even fried – of the freezer,
frost,
the suspended pleasure is delivered
from the deli in the basement.

I wished to remember life, not death –
the motionless body of her pink nightgown on the bed,
how I slept on a shallow bed of scattered sheets
after removing it,
inhaling her scent one last time.

I close my eyes, and I hear a piece of bread
holy cake on my tongue again
try to taste the mother, to separate
the message he baked in these loaves
when he is too sick to eat them;

I love you.
It will end.
Leave something sweet
and context
at the mouth of the earth.

Taste the extra sweetness of Emily's voice with her poignant reading of “You Can't Have It All” – a book of poetry by Barbara Ras – and enjoy her extraordinary TED talk about learning to die.

Photo by John Keatley

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