Sunday, June 21, 2020

SECOND WAVE





We planned to mark her birthday –
and visit her in her filing cabinet,
with its gracious gardens,
dim corridors of old-aged aromas
of faeces and this morning’s food,
groans and occasional cries from rooms.
This place had been her home
since her vision failed
four summers past.

There was nothing that grandma Jenkins didn’t see
despite her blindness, sensing precisely
changes in size and shape of family members,
alterations in tone of voice and itemising these
with the wit of wicked teasing
shifting the focus from herself
onto others to whom she had donated
genetic material, across three generations.

When we bade farewell,
her face – half smile, half sad – 
was a picture of the reverie of age.
Outside the littlest of our clan waved
goodbye, through her window
a gesture relayed to her by a carer:
she smiled and returned the sign.

Weeks later we returned
when the plague was active
and the filing cabinet was locked.
We could not visit or touch
and were confined outside.
She had the virus and was teetering,
short of breath and weak. 

We mourned among ourselves:
then the littlest who had waved before
wanted to wave again. This was arranged.
Soon to depart for other worlds,
grandma Jenkins was supported by a carer in a space suit.
A weak hand appeared at the window
together with a faint smile.

“That was my second wave!” the little one exclaimed,
in triumph as we drove home.

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