​Nomadic


For days my mother carries 
her New Year’s orchid 

from room to room, finally 
sets the showy greenhouse gift 

delivered to her apartment
in a whiteout blizzard

down in the black ceramic 
hollow of the fireplace. Instead 

of beauty she praises the plant’s 
height and health, counts ten 

open blossoms and eighteen 
buds over the phone to me 

as if there are almost too 
many leading her to distraction. 

All winter they will bloom 
on twiggy tropical stalks 

like some long gone stubborn 
husband who talks and talks 

over the peace and quiet 
she cultivates. From her bed 

against the opposite side of 
the wall she still sees his bruised 

skin thinned into strange purple 
maps, misses politics most, hears 

him stumble on slippered feet, 
wandering the no man’s land 

of her livingroom, tapping his 
cane through ash, or is it 

snow, forever prying at 
the doors to her heart.