Death on My Mind

Every Wednesday morning the garbage truck rumbles by on NE 54th Street with such magnitude that the vibrations rattle the ceramic art work on the SW wall of my bedroom, hundreds of yards away, and wakes me up. The art work is an Annie Quigley original ceramic plate purchased for me by my first partner, Sandy Frascati, who died of cancer two summers ago. From now, to 23 years ago every Wed. morning. From garbage to artwork, every Wed. morning. The rippling vibration of our lives. From Quigley to Frascati to now. "We cannot know the impact of our presence." (Do I need to quote myself from my own poetry?)

I am, of course, reminded of the ripples of a stone's throw, the impact of the life and death of others on the life and death of me. The ripple of the twin's lives on mine with the forever understanding that we are loved just for being. Quinn and Eleanor showed me that in two weeks, that which I couldn't learn in 45 years. The ripple of Sandy's life and death on me, my first love, estranged for 20 years and still I felt her impending death one year before I got the word. Was it the Quigley? I have a matching Annie Quigley lamp base, light for reading (which Sandy loved to do)...both pieces are a summer sky blue glaze, dull with heat ~ Salt Lake City, 1980's lesbian lavender and muted pink marble stripes are neatly layered in diagonals half-way across the diameter. What I like most about the design is the quarter inch slash through the tidy geometry, destroying the order of the piece, saying, "Just when you think you have it all figured out. Guess what? You don't!"

This ceramic plate rattles against my convent white bedroom wall every Wednesday morning even though I can't remember why I loved Sandy. Even though I never knew Annie Quigley, and don't know if she is dead, too. So much has passed in 23 years, Sandy, Sweetpea, loves lost, careers, Eleanor, Quinn, families of choice, lost and still I wake, every Wednesday morning, to the rattle of the Quigley plate.