Tall Janet’s cane sounds a jangle of keys
Melvin keeps time to a thud as he seizes
the wooden handle of his, rubber-tipped, sorely
needed on carpet or linoleum floor.
A third leg evolves for many here.
Zigzagged by Peter, motorized, who steers
with childhood memory of rides, back-to-back
cars going bump/whizz/crash on crazy tracks.
“You walk so fast!” Who, me? Speed, as they say,
is relative. Each life soap opera played
commercial-free. No reaching eighty-plus
without a house a child a husband lost.
Voices alter, rasp, quaver in the throat.
Talk drives the oars of our humming lifeboat.
From “Life Work, Poems,” David Robert Books, 2013.
Charlotte Mandel has published nine books of poetry, including her poem-novella, “The Marriages of Jacob,” “a feminist midrash.” Visit her at charlottemandel.com.
