Ellen Foos: Letting Assisted Living Have a Say
We are both losing something.
I am losing him,
he is losing himself.
Sydney Lea: Final Visit
He kept awkwardly laying a hand across his forehead, trying to cover his eyes. He’d done that a lot by then. Ever the iron-butt Yankee, he meant to hide his tears, though … Continue reading
Kurt Brown: A Moment
You stood before me, brushing your long hair,
stroke after stroke in the astonished air
while you talked of nothing, and I sipped my drink.
Desne A. Crossley: Alzheimer’s and Missing Love (2015-2017, 1996 & 1950)
Watched the movie Hidden Figures (when the first black women worked in the Nasa space program) and almost cried. My father was a rocket scientist, something I didn’t realize until his brain was already gone to Alzheimer’s.
Rose Mary Boehm: Poinciana and then some
Green canopies aflame with
an unreal red, lit by the dying sun.
Yonhi in the plastic chair, blue baseball
cap pushed back. He’s seen it all.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: ‘She had a horror he would die at night’
She had a horror he would die at night.
And sometimes when the light began to fade
She could not keep from noticing how white
The birches looked and then she would be afraid
Sydney Lea: La Bella Vita
We oddly felt we’d come home when, having left behind the dreadful heat and crowds of Rome, we settled into a rented house in Umbria, a sturdy little structure built in 1434
Beth Copeland: Second Wife
Fifteen years ago I drove south to see you as trees broke
into bloom—redbuds, pears, dogwoods—and my heart
unfolded like a bud closed too long in the cold.
Kurt Brown: The Kiss
That kiss I failed to give you.
How can you forgive me?
Tony Hoagland: Sweet Ruin
Maybe that is what he was after,
my father, when he arranged, ten years ago,
to be discovered in a mobile home
with a woman named Roxanne, an attractive,
recently divorced masseuse.
Video: A Kind Favor
On the magical coast of Central California, a grandmother reflects on a life filled with art, love, and tragedy.
Kristofer Collins: Trying to Read Levis at Drag Brunch 9.28.24
Yes, here is the late style of fire. Here is the burning
and the beauty of the thing engulfed.
Later I will not lack for poetry and my wife and I
will scorch the sheets.
Video: Eternity
Valerie and Alan have been married 57 years. Eternity is a look at love that lasts a lifetime, whether they like it or not.
Donna Spruijt-Metz: Birthday with Empty Hands
Today is our firstborn’s birthday—and you
are missing the party.
You’ve been pulled away on
death’s urgent business.
