Becoming My Parents
I never thought it would happen: the little things.
Mom kept a sherbet tub for trash
by the sink, the garbage can being several feet away.
I use empty containers, oat meal boxes,
bread wrappers. She made lists for everything,
grocery, errands to run, what I was to take back
on my return to North Carolina. I use the backs
of envelopes to start poems, lists of chores, calls to be made.
Dad didn’t much care how he dressed;
he wore Dickies pants and shirts, khaki only.
Dressing up was putting on a short sleeved shirt
to go to Shoney’s. My brother bought him a suit
to wear at Mom’s visitation, I had to go to Wal-mart
to get something to wear to Dad’s. In his last days, he wore
his slippers everywhere. I live in my blue jeans and T-shirts,
dressing up is a good pair of blue jeans and frayed Lands’ End shirts.
I brought his slippers home.
Muddy River Poetry Review
Fall 2014
