The Nursing Home

 

The Nursing Home

 

 

Caroline glanced across her lunch tray

           framing window’s winter wasted leafless trees

one branch reached out

clawing, scratching, scraping

clicking cold against the glass.

                                                  two separated distant worlds.

Caroline tries to remember

              tries to remember

                      to remember

                           remember

                                    “What was it?”

 

Caroline leans back against the chair and glances down,

down dribbled coffee spots on apron’s terrycloth

down to broken cornflakes on the floor

                                  Wondering

                                 Watching

                               Waiting

Trying to remember.

                                       “What was it?”

                                        “What was it?

Caroline pulls her brindled housecoat round her chest

and says to no one standing there as if they were:

“Don’t you think it’s cold in here?”

“I’m just really cold.”

                        staring at the door

                            staring at the floor

                                          staring down the corridor

                                                                            trying to remember

                                                                                           “What  was it?”

                                                                                           “What was it?”

                                                                                          “I can’t remember what it was,

                                                                                                   but I  know it was.

                                                                                                    I just know it was.

 

 

David Weir

 

I am a 74yr old man married to the same wife for 48 yrs with seven children on the journey.  My first major was English and Speech, but ended up with minors  in Chemistry (I was an analytical chemist/toxicologist).  Have written poetry all my life, off and on, but starting to return to it like the open embrace of a waiting friend.  Speech now is tiring and tedious and seldom conveys the meaning that I wish, but it carries meaning in the poem.