Laureate - Catherine Rickbone

“Didn’t you know Billy Collins used to be Poet Laureate?” he said.

I said, You have to understand. Those years,
I was washing liquid bowels off grandmother’s comode legs,
cleaning up pools of it in her bed sheets,
and splatters off the TV console.

You have to understand –
That I was lifting her from the floor, once again,
at 2 am when I heard her thud over my baby monitor
in the parlor where I slept.

That I was preparing favorite meals
she would shove away, saying she didn’t like it.

That I was paying bills, sealing envelopes,
affixing stamps, as she shouted
that she ‘could do that for herself,’ even though her
macula had degenerated beyond writing her name.

That I was coordinating doctors’ visits,
with the vagaries of her ambulance crises,
my studies and day-job deadlines.

That I was trying to reason: she needed
a care facility with more equipment and personnel,
I needed less of her constant evasive response, ‘It will all work out.’

That I was selling her home of sixty-seven years
touching the heartbreak of a dream that had worked
but was now dissolving before her cloudy cornea.

That I was rummaging through her closets,
cleaning out the basement, emptying pantry shelves
in preparation for her life’s auction.

That I was closing chapters, ending paragraphs,
completing sentences, finishing her words and mine.

That I had no time
for end rhyme, slant rhyme,
no rhyme or reason, except that
I was grateful for this meditation.