I remember a miasma of scented bath powder
and the funereal fragrance of lilies. This fusion of odors
clutched onto visitors in the vestibule and pursued them
to the catacombs of the ill and dying.
My mother found herself among the ill and dying
and became one of them.
Woodmeadow Assisted Living Facilities—the home,
she called it. “Compartments of the damned, ” she dubbed it.
Our conversation always seemed to drift toward home
and memories of houses. And my mother’s reminiscences
arose and coalesced with the floral emanations
and bloomed in a way.
There was one house in which I had lived the bulk
of my boyhood. “What happened to the house on Route 12? ”
“I don’t remember that house.” she said,
crinkling her forehead to squeeze out the data, dry.
“The house where I planted the red maple tree;
where you planted candelabra bushes on the hill;
The house I remember most. The house
with the pomegranate tree. Remember the house? ”
“It burned down.” She said
and looked out the solitary window, wondering.
“It looks like rain.”
Sonny Rainshine
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/assisted-living/
