Martin Kohn
1.
No cold plums
just the leftover
chocolate ganache
that we left in the fridge
and which I falsely accused
you of eating
Forgive me
as I lick
the sweet plate clean
and look for a magnet
to post this note
Carl V. Tyler
In my clinic and in the nursing home
Every week I see it
That depthless hollow look behind the eyes
But this time it was your eyes
Sitting across the table
At a TGI Friday’s outside of DC.
And that all-too-familiar look to your face
Of knowing and not knowing
Of barely contained panic
Of quizzically furrowed brow
Of fear.
Lost was your rich and subtle language
The rapid-fire musical cadence
The effortless literary allusions
Of English teacher and poet.
Liat Katz
Virginia is sweet. And I don’t mean that in a patronizing, “Isn’t she cute and sweet in her neediness and cluelessness” kind of way. You can tell that she has always been a warm and inviting person, and that she likes people. And today, I need sweet.
As an Adult Protective Services (APS) social worker, I’ve had quite a week among the belligerent abusers, the angry hoarders and the adult children unwilling to help their aging parents who are living in squalor. So I am thrilled that my new client, Virginia, is sweet.
Virginia came in as a financial-exploitation case. Apparently some men had bilked her out of $25,000, promising that in exchange they would cut down some trees in
Ronna L. Edelstein
For years, and especially as he entered his nineties, my father kept begging me not to “dump” him into a nursing home. He had seen too many of his cronies abandoned in this way by family members; his visits with these friends left him feeling depressed and hopeless for days. I assured Dad that I’d never put him in a facility.
It was an easy promise to make. I didn’t want him in a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest setting with a Nurse Ratched supervising his care. I didn’t want him waking up at night disoriented and lonely. Because he was inching closer to death, the greatest unknown, I didn’t want a facility, with all of its unknowns, to
Sandra Miller
My left hand is an idiot.
I don’t think it can save me.
Deep in my brain, the old twine of brittle DNA,
the sparks of my memory and blasted circuits,
fizz and fray.
The spiral staircase twists, leading nowhere.
They say learn something new
so I rouse the dormant piano and try to
find the stretch, learn the reach
but my left hand bangs out sour notes and
my right hand, my anchor, derails in dismay.
She haunts me, she follows me, she plucks at my sleeve …
I won’t turn and look
at her chickadee eyes and empty-gourd head,
fumbling at spoons, hair gone askew.
