At The Nursing Home
She visits you every day,
says she is your daughter.
You nod, politely,
wishing she’d leave
before she tells more stories
of people you don’t know.
Your memories are
tissues crumpled
in a wastebasket.
The bird at the window
is your youngest
born in a snowstorm.
Photos on the mantel
around you close like doors
that never open again.
*
Gary Metras’s new book of poetry is River Voice II (Adastra Press, 2020). Other recent books are Captive in the Here (Cervena Barva Press, Dec. 2018) and White Storm (Presa Press, Feb. 2018). His poems have been in recent issues of Poetry East, Ibbetson Street, and Main Street Rag. He is the inaugural poet laureate of the City of Easthampton, Massachusetts as of April 2018. Besides poetry, fly-fishing and tying flies are his passion.
