Reentry
Sara Brodsky
I sit with three demented women in their nineties.
Three after-dinner conversations fly,
banging into each other,
ricocheting,
drifting off course.
Aunt Sylvia insists she must call her mother.
Edith announces she works for her father.
Mimi declares she has two daughters.
I grab onto this shooting star.
“Where do your daughters live?” I ask.
Mimi closes her eyes, and I watch
as the star’s tail
evaporates.
Edith says she starts work early the next morning.
My aunt frets, “We’re the only people left.”
Mimi declares she has two daughters.
I try. I ask, “What are their names?”
She shuts her eyes and loses the light.
“You see that woman?” my aunt asks.
All eyes follow her pointing finger.
A woman in a calf-length bathrobe shuffles past.
“She’s always going to the bathroom. What does she do in there?”
“Maybe she loves sitting in there,” I say.
Aunt Sylvia guffaws.
Edith chuckles.
Mimi smiles.
Grounded.
About the poet:
Sara Brodsky is a writer and cabaret artist near Boston, MA. Her first career was in healthcare communications, but she left that path to » Continue Reading.
