The Hot Irons
Author/illustrator of Whispers of the Goddess & The Quit Smoking Express. Graduate of the Long Ridge Writing Group & Institute for Writers
Please don't take this
the wrong way
but I am too fragile
and far too emotional,
more now than you may remember,
for this abbreviated and challenging world
I saw the shadow of myself
in her eyes
and I know it's too late
What chance did I have
What choice did I make
What road did I take
Will I stop hiding sugar
(and address that addiction)
and wear all my pointy toed shoes?
Will I hug anyone
or just my crystals and amulets
to my chest?
Forever, boiled chicken will haunt me
make me shudder
and I'll feel super guilty
like she always wanted me to
But now that guilt has transformed
because you never know
when you will be standing
on a sticky tile floor
that has not been rinsed
that has been bathed
in the sickness of the elders
When will the haunt of the
thick plastic
reddish-brown
circular cafeteria dish
recede from my own memory?
The olfactory recollection of the scents:
pureed beef, peas, and potatoes
make my mouth water in disgust.
The smell of the plastic vanilla pudding
amidst the nearby condensation and a note:
"NO GRAVY" (heart healthy cardiac diet)
Yet there it is.
Poured over everything.
Brown and overdosed with salt.
It sits on the potatoes she refuses.
It sits on a smaller than normal teaspoon
and I feel the ghost of my father watching
Crying, screaming, and
the smell of elderly shit drift
mingling with the scent of food
that she will never eat
Drifting down every hallway
the only escape is the elevator
that no one told me the passcode for
So I cry, trapped in the scent of
feces and gravy
and I try to hide it from
the lined up men and women
sitting like hollow dominoes
all ready to fall
all ready to die
all ready to forget
decades of lives
Tangled in hospital socks
and painful IVs
sheets that hundreds have
already died in
sheets of glass so big
they mercilessly give view
to the outside world
boasting a place
they will never
be part of again
© 2021 Carole Anzolletti