tony howarth

 

 

Erna 100

 

Once, casement windows, a crossbreeze, sunporch, farmhouse kitchen, archway into the dining room, basement full of Allan’s tools

Now, the wrap-around thermal windows are tightly sealed.  Sunlight and rain streak the windows.  The view outside, a parking lot

 

What she could do helps her laugh

at what she no longer can

 

She nursed a garden crowded with zinnias, in spring the apple blossoms, mock orange, butterflies floating on waves of fragrance

A tropical vine smothers the wall in the corner.   She scrawls the watering schedule in crayon on the refrigerator calendar

 

All she hears –

you have to eat to stay alive

 

Four children, her kitchen a daily bedlam – always a bird roasting in the oven – recipes collected from everywhere – spanakopita, calde verde, peach cobbler

Her daughters often visit to rustle up lunch.  No appetite – just a half-glass of juice. Cheese and crackers in bed after midnight

 

Hip replacement, broken wrist

congestive heart failure

 

Allan played the flute, sat with duets gathered round the piano, she made music too, singing in constant motion, while cooking, while filing Allan’s lawyer papers

The gleaming baby grand stands in stillness.  She wonders why she

keeps it

 

Stumbling to the bathroom

clinging to a stranger’s elbow

shatters past and present

 

Up and down the stairs, two flights up, one flight down, wander round the garden at twilight, hop in the car on impulse, travel anywhere, fresh corn, Cape Cod

A walker that converts into a perch.  Bent-over progress measured in feet per hour.  The lost breath, the tubing in the nose

 

Tells the hospice nurse at her bed-side

   this is my last day

dozes off but then, wakes up

struggles to remember

   am I gone yet



 

Tony Howarth is a playwright, retired teacher, former journalist, living in Patterson, New York, wondering how our leaderless world is going to get out of the mess it's in.  His work has been published in Chantarelle's Noteboor, Chronogram, Pearl, and The Naugatuck River Review.

 




 

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