People used to tell me, “Lucky You Live, Hawaii.”
Back in the day
when I was battered and bound in wedlock.
And I would half-smile
nod my head
my younger life, a mixed bag.
I could write a book on isolation.
Now, I am the homeowner
in southwest Florida, a reversal from living at Moms in New York.
And Mom is sitting on the recliner reading her book.
She’s been there since mid-March.
We are both over sixty.
I think of my 84-year-old Mom, the woman who brought my two sisters and me
into this world,
her wheel of fortune luck
has seen it all.
Mom is the definition of love.
I am but one glimmer in her small cosmos.
My atomic number is seven billion, billion, billion.
The nucleus, protons, and electrons swirling now
like leaves on a blustery April morning
spinning out my “Poem of the Day.”
I consider whether it is better to run the vacuum instead.
My mind slowly races
over current events
what to do about the rusty bicycle outside
the illusion of control in a world gone gray and scruffy.
The dissolving bubble of isolation
that surrounds us
the lowered safety nets, my various states of calm terror,
her expectant gaze as she calmly asks what’s for dinner, reassuring me once again that this too shall pass. Life will resume. We will noodle float in the pool again.
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