Poem: “Memory 1” 2020
October 20th, 1945"
Her room was decked with flowers.
She hated it:
It reminded her of funerals.
She was instant friends with Fern and Ann,
Spending time watching a TV,
She couldn’t see.
Beautiful soul with paper skin,
Tough bones wrinkled soft,
Even in a hospital bed,
She remembered every birthday
“Did you call Ted?”
And she wanted to give us money,
Just for passing through,
But we were the one’s gifted
By the sweetness of her view.
Out the window
Green fields made dying a luxury
In the shades of falling night
Quiet in the memory
Of another era’s epidemic ward.
Breaking the silence,
Sprinklers made an enchanting tune,
Like the dishwasher of my youth,
Setting the tempo of a voyage out to sea,
In my stellar maiden dreams.
Under the frosty institutional light,
In the America she loved,
Flag upon the alter,
We sipped apricot tea,
And her emerald radiated
The graceful intensity of the fight.
