by Daniela Lorenzi
Companion
I carry you with me
through urine-scented hallways
past linen carts loaded down with too-worn
beige green sheets
some clean and folded, slapdash,
others reeking, stuffed in lumpy bags;
unlabeled plastic bottles jostle from steel hooks
like tattered buoys from a dock
caustic cleaning fluids sloshing.
I carry you with me
to the steel-framed bed by the window
maneuver through your coterie of oxygen,
suction, feeding machines. Sling lift. Wheelchair.
Teddy bears and happy-faced fake flowers
frame the window. Photographs
of all of us together, of luckier times,
hang from brothy walls —
a futile attempt to float you
away.
I carry you with me
like a weighty cloak of breaths
I can parcel out as needed
when your absence becomes too heavy,
threatens to implode me. I inhale
and pick you up again, continue our journey
past those urined hallways, through
the automatic doors to the courtyard garden;
chair brakes secured, we sit, you and I,
looking up through the canopy of rust-yellow leaves
at filtered sunlight.
***
Polished Oak
Reading glasses rest
on the table by the window
the half-finished New York Times
artlessly folded, expecting, perhaps,
a return to the task.
A wine glass
refracts winter light;
crusted dregs of red
line the bottom
as dried rivulets
like watered blood
trail down the crystal stem.
There is sure to be a ring
on the polished oak by now.
His chair, still warm
in the sun, brown leather seat
worn and scratched, molded
with time into a perfect fit
invites a sniff from Max
who lifts his head, waiting
for his customary scratch
but then curls up, resigned,
in the shadow of slippered feet.
On occasion, though
– funny thing –
he cocks his head just so
as if enjoying a good rub
between the ears.
Dog dreams. Perhaps.
Daniela,
Your descriptions are so strong. Taste, smell, touch, all are there with such impact. Thank you for reconnecting my memories.
Thank you, Anne.
Yes, it doesn’t take much to drag up those smells and colours. We never really forget; we just manage to bury them so that we can carry on, function. But they are always there. . .