Poem

Middle-Age in the time of COVID

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

My mom had died.

Without her
my dad wandered alone
in an unknown place,
demented,
without a phone.

The only trace of him,
credit card charges
from random places.

I awoke in darkness,
my dad
five years gone.
(Longer, if you count his mind.)

My mom
still alive.

The orphan,
now eighty-one,
survived her parents,
her husband,
her brother.

Her children,
grandchildren,
blown to the corners of the country.

Self-isolating.