December 2021
Joan Mazza
joan.mazza@gmail.com
Bio Note: Although I’m a homebody and a hermit, this time of isolation seems both endless and delicious. I’ve used this great pause to write more and to read books again, as well as submit more of my work. My poetry has appeared in Slipstream, Italian Americana, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and The Nation. I live in rural central Virginia in the woods.

My Days of Wine for Breakfast

I make oatmeal
with a pinch of nutmeg,
the way my mother likes, for her
to gaze at until it turns cold,
its surface shiny hard.
 
Evenings, I wheel her
into the family room,
refuse bad news on TV,
rent “Cinderella”
and “The Lady and the Tramp.”
Did these movies set me up for disappointment?
 
I sit on the floor
next to her, laid out on the couch.
I’m a child again, laughing out loud.
Disney flies us away
from dreaded words:
colostomy, metastasized.
 
If she wants a hot shower and can stand,
we skip the sponge bath in her bed.
Arm around her waist,
my left hand holds her right.
We steer our way
down the short and narrow hall—
a step and a step
and a step.
She finds her voice.
“Wanna dance?”
Originally published in Survivor’s Review July 2009
©2021 Joan Mazza
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