Nothing More Than a Visit

I reached out and touched her hand, a simple

gift in a nursing home.  Her old skin was soft

as spring grass.  Others watched with suspicion,

She placed her other hand over mine

as if to forestall my leaving.  I had decided

in an instant when I heard of her change

of habitat to visit this former neighbor

without family.

 

She is a woman with an endless heart.

Once, when I asked her to describe

herself, she answered, “My loneliness

is indestructible.”  

 

The smell of dinner drifted in from the

dining room.  She claimed not to be

hungry except for company.

I asked about her husband. She said

they had had an arrangement which lasted

sixty years.  She had no children, claimed

to be standing on the back porch of life

waiting for death.  I assured her

there would yet be moments of happiness.

Her face remained stolid.  

 

I stood, my signal for departure, walked

across flowered carpet toward the exit,

emerged into the welcome glare of late

sunlight.

 

___

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Nik Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. Nik is the author of two chapbooks: Cafes of Childhood and Greatest Hits, as well as eight books: Why Dance, Necessary Windows, Cafes of Childhood (the original chapbook with additional poems), Mother Goosed, Occasional Heaven, A Human Saloon, Rustle Rustle Thump Thump, and Rough.  Critics and judges called Cafes of Childhood a “beautifully harrowing account of child abuse,” but not “sentimental” or “self-pitying,” an “amazing book,”  and “a single unified whole.”