Rehearsal by Jacqueline Jules

Each time he goes to the hospital,
I rehearse: eating alone,
sleeping alone, having no one
to discuss the morning news with.

And each time he comes home,
I feel like I’m standing
on a bare stage,
not knowing my lines.

He has a new diet, new prescriptions,
a new doctor to consult.

I hurry to the grocery, the pharmacy,
rush to rearrange my calendar
and my hopes, still shaken
by our last rehearsal.



Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit www.jacquelinejules.com