The Album

Barb Kelly,

from her collection Leave-taking. Copies for sale at cactuspresspoetry.com,

listed under Chapbooks. Price: $13

I rest on the table.

Patient.

The staff, by your bed,

chat about their weekends

as they check and arrange you.

Then the whir of the lift that raises you up from the bed,

and down into the wheelchair.

They roll you to the usual spot.

You struggle some gibber-questions,

give up and mumble your thanks.

They are kind

but then they are gone, their voices

trailing down the hall

to other sorry beds.

I lie on the table, solid

and full of promise, waiting

for my pages to be turned

as you stare out the window

beyond me.

I listen to your breathing

as you puzzle about the cars driving by.

I tempt you with my cover:

a large black and white of the family, circa 1970.

Look at me I plead through the eyes

of the girl in the jumpsuit.

I am your daughters baguetting in Paris,

your husband in his earth-blue sweater,

your sister in pearls in San Francisco,                          

your boy in the yard holding the dog.

Come linger on the page

with your mother and aunts 

in Queen Elizabeth hats and coats,

your uncle on a horse in the War,

your wedding smiling with confetti.

Flip through a family dinner,

a camping trip, your tennis gang,

the rowboat in Rigaud,

kids packed into your brother’s sports car.

I am your ten grand-children

goofing in the driveway,

your lake, your woods,

the flowers for the wedding

of the daughter you later lost

(but did you realize she was gone?)

Please hold me

so I can whisper your past,

the textures of old sweaters,

girls in holiday dresses,

ski suits from the eighties,

squinting babies on country roads.

Please sing to me the old song

so I can breathe some air,

walk with you

on common ground,

feed your longing

to remember.

Your hand like an autumn leaf

turns a few pages and lands,                                        

a photo—you with your husband

(toddler in one hand, beer in the other).

You lean in

then close your eyes, drifting

as the cars pass by.

 barbkelly555@gmail.com