No time, he says, as he lifts my grandmother

from her wheelchair to the toilet and back again

 

spoons rice and cubed JELL-O past unsmiling lips

into her gaping baby-bird mouth

 

then eases her onto the sofa, careful

to tuck the beaded flannel beneath her chin.

 

Meanwhile, what was once jubilant rows

of tassled corn and sturdy pole beans

 

now snarls like a half-starved dog

whose coat is thick with burrs and tangles,

 

and as my grandmother’s breath shuffles in and out

my grandfather dreams of tomatoes:

 

fat Beefsteak and juicy Better Boys,

Early Girls blushing pink then flaming red,

 

remembers summers spent weeding and watering,

how he’d palm the tomatoes, give them the slightest twist,

 

then sit back on his heels as the fruit burst

like fireworks against the back of his teeth.

 

From The Color of Lost Rooms (Blue Rooster Press, 2010), winner of Writer’s Digest’s 19th Annual

Self-Published Book Prize for Poetry.

Used here with the author’s permission.