She was the best mom.
In hard times, she’d put a Bible under my pillow
so words of comfort mingled with my dreams.
(Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy.)
She never let a stranger-child go hungry,
even with that big farm, big family –
drove my father nuts!
It’s a KID, she’d say.
That was that.
FEWalls
Crowned
“king of the gods” in high school,
caped with scepter in hand, a gentle smile,
the basketball star in our tiny world,
at 21, a lieutenant in Vietnam.
Bombs
fell on the green villages
perimeters strafed and over-run
maimed bodies,
youth,
sanity,
all sacked up together like shades of rice
before the boiling pot.
Carved
your name
on marble,
held in place
by those who died before
and after you,
carved on black
marble reflecting back the twisted mouths
holding grief high and tight,
hands offering medals,
roses,
poems
to names on a wailing wall.
FEWalls
As I walk in,
a woman straightens the chair on the patio outside her room.
Her Easter lily, parched, sits untended, one bloom left.
As I pass she says, I’m nuts, and blows me kisses,
her fingers touching her lips and the empty space between us.
One aide plays “string the pearls” with five women,
then plays “follow the leader”
and leads them off for rest time.
Each woman has a place at the table
and a room of her own.
In one room, ceramic dolls
in elegant kimonos bow
in a silent dance.
Into Louise’s room walks a stranger
saying, where’s my false teeth,”
sure she left them here.
The rhodies by Louise’s window
at the peak of their exuberance
bloom red and sturdy, as if
they will never droop
or leave the walkway carpeted with softness.
An aide comes to her room,
hands white with rubber gloves.
She puts her arm around Louise,
turns her away from me, and chats about the weather
as I slip away.
I was never there.
FEWalls
His scent lingers
near his bedroom door,
I sniff the air –
a startled deer –
then feel his absence
in the molted room.
That slip of the mind
That momentary disengagement
Like the clutch in the old Dodge
I think: I have to get a message to her
Then: how can I get a message to her
As if it were a problem I could puzzle out and solve
Then I remember.
All this in a heartbeat
FEWalls
A Long Perspective 