37.
Wind pushes at the walls and
eves of the old timed home
in Omaha’s west side neighborhood
where I work.
I do home care - take blood
pressures, document weight
fluctuations and when or
whatever comes knocking, do
everything in my power to
make the client I have
as comfortable as possible.
When the wind blows it tosses
the trees around and their
shadows strobe and flit-filter
the sunlight onto the floor
of the room. My client has
outlived his friends, outlived
the idea of what everyone
thought America should be -
outlived the depression,
the wars and all the
stale prosperous years.
and yet for all that is one
of the happiest grittiest
souls I've ever known.
I sense the drought coming -
not too far off now
and the weight of all those
memories of that abysmal drive
pushing on purposeless
between Denver/Omaha, feeling
its shadow coming in
from the western expanse of
deserts and odd shaped zig
zag coast lines. Its started its
attack and wages its sentences
in that twisting lower lurch
certainty that there’s really
nothing out there and being
startled when that nothing knocks at the
freshly painted door
as tacky and gloom-new
as time itself.
(October 14th, 2014)
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