I phone home daily
to see if there’s any improvement,
that swelling has thinned,
that the pain is ethereal,
that pill bottles are shaken in a celebratory song.
there is hope, but
I gave up
a job across the country because
duties of parent and child have reversed
Now I use words, questions, laughter
to build memories and create
something to hold onto.
~ Allan Boss
Allan Boss […]
His hands
hot pink rheumatoid balloons
float to carroty plastic containers:
1, 2, 3, 4 filled
with charcoal, chartreuse, cinnamon, chamomile
bubbles of hope.
Bloated fingers clumsily grip pill bottles,
dump a few globes onto the counter
and sweep the proper mound into a reddened palm,
slowly growing toward the mouth and
slipping down the throat slick
with spit and swallow.
Then lay on the couch and
sleep […]
In the early afternoon while they liein bed the furnaceturns on.Somewhere in her housea floor-board creaks.
I love . . . when you touch me here, she says,
I want to touch you there every night, he […]
Germany 1945.
Two sisters pick soft yellow chamomile
On an open birdsong-filled hill
Chamomile scents plummet onto yellow fingers
Sunlight shoots down from above.
Their foreheads glisten
with beads of sweat. The girls run,
Tumble down the hills
Laughing, digging, tossing flowers
Into the air where
Two buzzing dots
Mark the sky.
The older sister takes her sibling’s hand
And runs runs runs runs
Toward home as […]
I drive my Chev ¾ ton 4×4 through ruts on a muddy cutline and at the bottom of a hill there’s a bit of a swamp so Pal says, it can’t be deep; just go on through, so I say yeah and I giver and we hit the water and it’s deep and we jostle […]
