Nearing the End of the Tunnel


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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