MY TURN
I got home late once, tired,
and sat down by his bedside.
You must be hungry, he said.
A magnificent sentence like that,
the last I remember him saying.
Soon, his arms alongside his body
like dead white eels,
he would only gesture his choices
with his eyes directly into mine
until, one day, still closer to July,
his gaze tore off the chain
of his mind, burst through the bulwark
of my long-exiled heart
and continued on. Indifferent.
Alone.
My eyes howled like a bereaved dog.
He turned beautiful
when his mind had gone.
RADKA THEA OTÍPKOVÁ has a degree in English from the University of South Bohemia, where, in 1996, she also started her teaching career as a lecturer in phonetics. She is currently working as an English teacher and translator. Her work has appeared in The North.