Visit

Visit

You offered to carry my suitcase, but The sight of your outstretched hand, knotted And spotted with sickness and anticipation, Made me refuse, uncomfortable, looking over Your bent shoulder — not remembering seeing Over it before — away from the lines and seams Underscoring the desperate need to please that Gleamed wetly in the rheumy corners Of your sinking eyesockets, strange pearls.

Your head once knocked against the bottom of the sky, And your hand once could blot out the sun, Raised to point out the turrets and follies of your latest Air castle or falling, cracking, like lightning, Over my upturned cheek, red marks like burns on my face.

You stand by the aunts as we drive away, Framed in the car’s back window, Tinted like your old school picture caged in its album. As the aunts wave, mouths soundlessly moving, You duck your balding head and cover your Eyes with one crabbed hand, With the other fitfully waving us on.

Joanna Grant