A New Coat

To whom and in what do I fit

raised by a lonely woman

who had second thoughts

after her marriage

of three decades

her second husband

tossed away at the wrong time

for poor reasons

when she could have had

someone to share a few more plays

concerts and parties

then ostracized by his circle

deserved or not

She was never very physical

never full of hugs

or just a simple touch

It felt so odd to hug her

as her runaway dementia plowed

though her hole-filled brain

mowing down memories

of everyone including me

at the end of her autonomic gasps

silenced by drops of morphine

Here the violins crescendo

in dark hours

months past those tears

when I still talk to her

across the chasm between

her chair and my sofa

the same stations

that brought calm to her sleep

Even in the years I cared

she always shouted

to a flameless room

filled with family shadows

in years that didn't

include me

never once falling

over the syllables

of her children's names

Her ashes in the ground

beneath the pines

far away

in what seems light years

across the galaxy of states

I am buried in my mobile home

quiet until the dawn

when I can no longer hold

the emptiness at arms length

only to jump into a cold bed

trying to still a vacant mind

akin to pulling a boiling pot

from a glowing stove

the liquid boiled away

to cause rainbows of heat

in the steel

Yes all the colors

anyone could want

except the one color

of you in my heart

whoever you might be

I hug the ceiling with my eyes

doused in minuscule shadows

from the acid street

curtains always drawn

to keep away my dreams

that always end with you

that always awaken to sorrow

much as she opened

her crusty eyes to empty days

You are not my mother

you always an imagination

of your face and hair

reflected in the polished pipes

of her empty funeral dirge

or the mirror of tarnished imagination

I don't know your eyes

the touch of you beside me

in these days of punishment

spiking memories mixed

with the burn

of never having met you

my invisible love

as I try on these age-filled years

a new coat made

from the wooden shavings

of my last breath

Barry G. Wick