Losing

Losing

by Barbara Moore

Aunt Mary is losing her grip
on the polished clothesline pole
supporting lines of string
where freshly laundered shirts
still flap in the breeze
of her once perfect memory

Unsettled she sits at the window
facing the north wall
of the rehabilitation center
she now calls home
Everything has been sold off
her handmade furniture
her collection of quilts

And the letters of love
sent by high school students
from her teaching years
have been misplaced
She can no longer
read them over and over

She mostly sits and stares
at the unrelenting wall
perhaps dreaming of her
lost vegetable garden
as she picks imaginary lint
from her wrinkled housedress

Author’s Comment: “Losing” is one in a series of poems inspired by my 103 year old Aunt Mary. I spent my childhood summers with her in Shoshoni, Wyoming. She was my role model then and continues to be, as she faces the losses accompanying aging with dignity and courage.

Bio: Barbara Moore was born in Danville, Virginia, adopted at three days old and flown to New York, where she resides today. She was an editorial researcher and later a therapist working with adolescents and substance abusers. Her poetry has appeared in Here and Now, lines written w/ a razor, heroin love songs and a Goldfish Press anthology. She occasionally performs her work at open mics in NYC.