After Your Sister-in-law Suffers a Massive Stroke by Lauren McBride for Kelly
and hug your husband.
That's his sister!
Together we remind her
of happy times (and wonder
how much she understands.)
We watch her take her first steps,
and then sink
back into a wheelchair
for however long she has left.
Between visits, we learn
how to pay her bills for her,
and we go through her things,
like intruders stealing
from the living, emptying
her house to sell it,
sorting through the boxes
moved to a storage unit –
a few each week,
grateful each visit
(as we try to bring her cheer)
that she has no way of
understanding that outside
of her memory care facility,
we are systematically
and sorrowfully
dismantling her life.
Bobby King by Terri Kirby Erickson
When Bobby King died of cancer, I was passing
a kidney stone. In fifth grade, Bobby was always
smiling, a lock of ash blond hair touching the twin
arches of his thick, crow-black brows. He seemed
like a pleasant enough boy, never teasing the girls
too much or getting into trouble. In high school,
he was in my homeroom, but we never talked. I
was a quiet sort—bookish and shy—and anyway,
we weren’t in homeroom long before the bell rang
to get the day started. I felt sad when I found out
what happened to him, that nice boy who had such
an infectious grin and a place in my life’s history,
albeit small. It makes me wish I’d known him better
like so many people I’ve taken for granted over the
years and now it’s too late. But I am sorry Bobby is
gone, sorry for the people who knew and loved him,
and sorry that my lower back hurt like it was kicked
by a mule when another wave of pain (that is nothing, really,
next to grief) nearly knocked me to my knees.
They had the draft. Then.
No defending the Vaterland, no fight in him.
He had been the black sheep,
the one who didn’t want to be a lawyer,
or an accountant, or a tax advisor, or…
My father wanted to join the merchant marine:
there might be mermaids, he wanted to be received
with flower wreaths in Tahiti,
explore mysterious Shanghai, get off ship
at Callao, the port city of Peru, entrance
to the old Inka empire, he had read about
the shapely girls of Rio de Janeiro.
He was young and there was a world.
My grandfather beat him.
My grandfather starved him.
My grandfather locked him up.
My grandfather was determined to break his
wayward son.
The draft allowed him an escape,
but the infantry was not for him.
One day he left one barracks and swaggered
into another, the one that promised adventure
in the new flying machines,
the one where you’d find the best of the best.
They never thought to look
for a deserter in the army
Grandfather says by Joe Cottonwood
Author’s Note: This is a poem in which I imagine my grandfather Leonard Chinn speaking to me about my great-grandfather Henry Chinn. I never met either man but my mother spoke of her father often and about how he considered that sea voyage at age seven “the high passage of his life.”
Poverty was our assigned station
in a dead nation until Daddy—
that is, my father, your great grandfather—
went first.
In America he found work.
After two years he sent tickets.
Mommy—your great grandmother—
was seasick, so I wiped her brow,
wiped the bottoms of my brother and sister
the entire passage as man of the family
at the age of seven
on that shuddering smoky ship.
Even now in memory I marvel.
Atlantic Ocean, named after Atlas
—did you know?—
who supported great burden.
I explored painted passageways
climbed wet ladders
to learn about class and that we were lower
with the smell of vomit and beans
splashing and churning over endless water.
In America I worked hard and lived poor
so it would not be your destiny.
I tell you now, Grandson,
I’ve had a time of it, many deeds
but that voyage in roaring sunlight
so grim so grand was the high passage
of my life.
View from the Bathroom Window by Rachael Ikins
1
The woman next door.
Died on her bathroom floor
one Saturday while I watched Mary Tyler Moore, her daughter called my folks.
They walked over to check.
2
My mother left me with her on errand day,
the hairdresser.
With Lassie, Mickey Mouse forbidden at our no-TV house.
When I was young enough to pee the good chair, too shy to ask for the bathroom
3
Uncle Dave had gone to be with Jesus among poofy clouds
and white feathers, a four year old’s back-seat musing.
4
Her name, Aunt Kay. Her Dalmatian, Lady, every morning Kay drove to work.
She and her sister, Jeanette on chaise lounges, helium balloons of laughter.
Keening above the pussywillows surrounding their brick patio.
5
Their brown drinks’ purple fumes stinging the eyes, mirth expanded.
Like their soft wide laps and breast cushions that could envelope a child
with scents of cigarette smoke, hand cream, and some mystery animal smell
I wouldn’t know until years later that was woman.
6
I noticed from my bathroom perch at home, the toilet seat window.
Quick gaps when they sat, neither wore underpants beneath those muumuus.
7
I had no sister and my mom’s sister who lived down the road from us, went for blood after fumes from her brown icecubes ignited,
A struck match, a dropped butt, a forest fire rolled through the woods.
I had no reference for a sister you got drunk with, red lipstick, silly and extra hugs. What did they giggle about as dusk floated down?
8
Jenaud— short for Jeanette Audrey Aunt Kay’s daughter basketball tall and thin. Glasses, freckles and plaid pleated skirts, saddle shoes and Bobby socks
sometimes babysat me after school. Blueberry Hill a place we sang and danced. Blueberries from Sal painted our lips, those brimming buckets.
9
Aunt Kay cooked me forbidden custard and grape Jello, my mother’s cookbooks had no room for a child.
Two His and Hers Cousin poems by Sharon Waller Knutson
when I read the obituary
of my cousin Blair who died
at 90, just like his mother.
Although I only saw him twice
and only remember him in shadows,
I recognize his photo in the obit.
I wonder if it is because he has
my father’s dark eyes and bushy
eyebrows and that professor stare.
Or did the photo trigger my memory
of what he looked like when three decades
ago I sat beside him and his wife, Marilyn
at the wedding of their son, Christopher,
now gone, a smart sensitive boy with dark
eyes and hair like I remember Blair
when Grandma and I took the train
to Kansas City for Blair’s High school
graduation. At his celebration
at the ice cream shop, Blair politely
asked his father if he could have
a banana split as a reward.
His father said, No, only
your mother gets a banana split.
You will eat a chocolate sundae
like the rest of us. Blair smiled
and nobody said anything
although my grandmother
sat there stiff as a corpse
with her lip zipped for fear
her son-in-law would send
her packing for sticking
up for her only grandson
and apple of her eye.
I at ten years old sat quiet
willing my beautiful aunt
to trade treats with her son
but she sat there obediently
lapping up her banana split
and smiling like a cheshire cat.
His father also denied Blair’s request
to stay out until midnight to celebrate
and Blair was home by 11 o’clock.
At the wedding, I watched
the sixty something Blair
with his son who was 33,
as they played like puppies.
laughing together, and talking
about designing and building
artificial body parts. Marilyn
confided in me that he used to be
strict until he had twin daughters
and they turned his life upside down
to explain why Blair was not his father
but I knew he was just the same smiling
sweet boy in the photos my grandma
showed me when I was a child, very
similar to the man in the obit photo.
I was not surprised to read
in the obituary that after 65 years,
Marilyn was by his side until the end
and he was missed by his children,
grandchildren, great grandchildren,
two poodles and several Birman cats.
What the obituary writer didn’t know
was that he is also missed by a cousin
bound by blood and memories.
as between sobs she tells us
how her husband, Brent,
my husband’s cousin
met his demise in their home
just three miles from us. We
thought she’d go first as we
watched his muscular body
pushing her around
in a wheelchair
for years as she suffers
from MS. I’m doing good,
she says. I was strong enough
to push him around in a wheelchair
for the last three months
after he got Valley Fever.
We thought his time was up
four years ago when he wobbled
on a walker at the funeral of his aunt
and my mother-in-law,
pale and reed thin,
with a bandage on his head
barely out of the hospital
from surgery for a brain tumor.
She tells us about the doctors
postponing the biopsy on the polyps
because he was too weak
and the heart palpitations
and when she gets to the part
about him feeling woozy
and falling on the bed
and reaching for her
and then he was gone,
I feel my own heart
beating like the wings
of a big blackbird
as I stare at my husband,
who has the same middle
name, and the same genes
is the same age- 78-
with the same disease
of Valley Fever.
ceremony for his cousin
at the rec hall where they
performed skits together,
my husband watches himself
in his cousin’s body in cowboy
hat and boots riding horses,
herding cows, pounding fence posts.
We bonded over dismantling
defenseless boiled shellfish,
sucking Land O’ Lakes off our fingertips,
our fifty-three-year gap closed
the moment we fastened on plastic bibs
with giant lobbies on the front
and he launched into crustacean instruction
with his rich French-Canadian accent.
Steakhouse onlookers absorbed
his meticulous tutorial, imitating him
as he twisted off each tiny leg,
bid farewell to the thumb shell,
dipped the delicacy into melted butter
and relished each luxurious bite;
blissful, even as bits of meat flew off
my pick into his lap,
unbridled laughter erupting
from both sides of the table.
From Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit
Is the way she cherished me; and you could say well,
that is what mothers are supposed to do isn’t it,
and I would say theoretically yes, but that is not the real
fact of my mother opening her front door and clapping
her hands to see me each Wednesday when I came, nor
is it my mother standing at her big picture window, smiling
with her hand on her chin while she watches
me skip down her front steps, while she waits for me
to unlock my Honda, climb in and snap on my seat belt,
maybe arrange my soda, my phone and my purse before I start
the engine, all of this and my mother is still visible
through the panes, in no hurry at all while she makes certain
her girl gets off soundly. I can still see her through
the reflected glass, tossing a kiss and waving her soft,
aged hands goodbye beautiful and drive safe.
From her Joy Becomes
Dear little creatures,
as I look out the window today
I send these thoughts to you---
may you be blessed on this, his day.
I have no hive to shroud
in mourning cloth so
I pour honey on my toast,
libation to our connection.
Take my love to him, my sweet boy.
On the day he was born,
I could not taste honey—
no food allowed before caesarean—
yet I tasted of his sweetness when
I kissed his soft baby cheek
as they placed him on me
newly taken from my womb.
Now, he rests and I know you visit
his place, tasting of the clover
flowers sprouting up among the green
where he was laid.
Some people think grief has a timeline
They reject talk
of tears, after their selected deadline.
Yet for me it is just yesterday
when he walked among the bees.
So, I greet you, dear ones,
honey givers, sweet as he,
take my voice,
the touch of my lips, to him,
remind him a mother’s love
is forever.
First published in When Women Write
Author’s note: My son died March 30, 2002 a few weeks away from his 20th birthday after being hit by a car.
My Father’s Son by Lynn White
I never knew
my father’s son.
Even though
I met him once,
or maybe twice,
I never knew him.
And then I met
his son.
Caught him
miraculously
in a net.
Held on to him
tightly.
And, I found
that he hadn’t left early,
my father’s son.
He’d waited for me,
wondering,
for a long time.
And so I found him,
my father’s son.
When he was
just ninety six,
I found him.
But I was too late
to know him.
At ninety five,
he was already dead.
So I never knew him,
my father’s son.
First published in Scarlet Leaf Review
A Certain Likeness by Laurie Byro
For my brother
With all the parades through our property, the dancing bears estranged
from one another, the raccoons, the bats piercing the night cloth
with their thumb-pin cries, I imagined I saw a certain likeness
in the yearling that appeared. You were not quite there, a stranger
who had disappeared, a runaway from your own tribe. Was it real
or a brown paper bag that tumbled, a wind-gust, a burst of brown leaves.
We were always preparing for winter, making neat piles.
Our property was so untamed we couldn’t grow grass for two seasons.
I told myself the forest was taking you back, you never entirely
belonged
to our world. I mocked the Army fatigues you wore out, the irony of
cruelty
and not necessity, but you knew better. Twenty years gone and you
returned,
the same arch of head, the same indifference to warnings. I worried
you were becoming too tame; I worried they would get you in the end.
I was never certain when you disappeared for good if you were chasing
after your own kind. A little aloof, a little too much fire blazing
through
the forest, you could have easily been the one that our car struck and
killed
that winter night. Better fast than slow, you had reasoned, as you
hunted
each November. Better a bullet than the serpent that crawled
into your mouth as you lay sleeping one cold winter night. Paul, I
whisper,
how these envious green creatures attach themselves to our dreams.
From Luna
