Surrounded by Strangers

The father is flawed.
His comatose body
shows lines of doubt
arrowed to almond eyes
and angled between them.
Even asleep, he wears
the years deep. The wife
droops beside him like
a coneflower while
the daughter holds his
limp hand. The son paces
the hospital room, gets
nowhere with his rant
about the other car, how
he would sue the driver
for passing on a double
line. Around the bend
it came into their lane,
he tells his stepmother.
If he hadn’t swerved
they might be dead.
I witness this commentary
while taking vitals.
The man has dementia.
He will place no blame
on his son if he awakes.
He will only smile
when he sees strangers
at his feet.

Bedside Manner

The void in your heart
is a malignant mole
is a falling star.
An endless hole

is a malignant mole,
the lack of your affection.
An endless hole
lost in errant perception,

the lack of your affection.
Is a soul torn apart,
lost in errant perception
not inherent? Your heart

is a soul torn apart,
my need for prayer.
Not inherent: your heart
in the blank of my stare.

My need for prayer
is a falling star
in the blank of my stare,
the void in your heart.

Standing on Wishbones

Because we always want what we can’t have,
I want bones. Hard bones. Hard as marble bones.
Bones that stand the test of time. Wishbones,
stalwart bones as secure as
the Palace of Versailles or Rome’s Pantheon.
I want curious tourists
to explore my skeleton for centuries to come.
I want the young and old to extol strength
from my Herculean frame, examine each joint
as if ossiferous remains set a formula
for all to follow:
how to insure durable scaffolding
through life and die with sturdy bones.
+++++But the scan discloses osteopenia,
a precursor to osteoporosis. I can’t stand
this prognosis, can’t become my mother—
her hunched over dowager’s hump,
hobbling around with a drugstore cane.
Mother complaining about weak knees
and slipped discs. As feeble as a rickety
building, ready to tumble with one touch.
I can’t obsess over the ruins of youth
and how choices made chiseled away
my chances to stand tall,
the hollow part of me too late to fill
destined to transform into a ghost
and haunt my kids with soft-bone genes
like my mother
unless someone breaks the cycle.
+++++++++I want someone else’s bones.
And my mother. I want her back.

Laurie Kolp’s poems have appeared in the Southern Poetry Anthology VIII: Texas, Stirring, Whale Road Review, Pith, Rust + Moth, and more. Her poetry books include the full-length Upon the Blue Couch and chapbook Hello, It’s Your Mother. An avid runner and lover of nature, Laurie lives in southeast Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.