March 2018
I write poetry because it helps me make sense of the world around and inside me. It piques my interest in the past and prods me to think more about the present and the future. I find the act of writing poetry joyful and self-reinforcing, even when the content of my poems is about sad or traumatic events.
The Road to Character
The living room of Ann’s
one-bedroom apartment looks
like a hospital ward with bedpans,
drug vials, a drip line and metal
rails flanking mattresses on which
lie two wizened old people who
after sixty-five years of marriage
fight over who will be fed first,
which one their daughter likes best,
and what TV program to watch.
I marvel at their energy and
Ann’s ability to take care of her
nonagenarian parents after working
a double shift cleaning seven floors
of the MetLife building, waiting
five hours with her father in the ER
before he was discharged to go
home, and shopping for a week’s
worth of groceries she slumps onto
a chair in the kitchen, its vinyl seat
cracked, oozing foam padding, and,
in a voice I can barely make out,
asks me for a cigarette.
© 2018 Martin H. Levinson
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