Conversations

She believes she can rotate time
With words whispered hoarsely or spoken as if
She is attending high tea
Converses nightly with her father
Though he is twenty summers dead
Believes her hospital robe, a satin dressing gown
Her plain olive socks, pumps of the finest brocade

Refusing breakfast, she goes to the window
At the end of the east hall
Looks only at the floor as she walks
As if her path is hidden in the orange and brown speckled linoleum
Mutters nonsense words and half-syllables
With a lilting cadence that shoots upwards then descends
Like a feather floating to the earth

Mumbles and mutters until she reaches the window frame
Leans against the polished mahogany
Rubs one finger gently, across the grain
Her eyes follow a dappling of shadows around the birch tree
Come to rest on a cardinal
Perched on the roughly hewn birdfeeder
In the Common Yard

“Birds fly over barbed wire.” She says to no one in particular
Follows this with an incantation of sorts;
“Spirit of bird, red like fire
Carry away on scarlet wings
The cursed wire that binds
The land holding a thousand
Wanting thoughts that see no harvest.”

Stays at the window long after the cardinal leaves
Until dusk gathers like magician’s smoke around the fence posts
Until both the birch and the feeder slip into gray
Like something lost at sea
And thinks she remembers
Losing something
But can’t remember what

Stays watching until the clouds roll back
Until twinkling diamonds appear
These she blesses with a beautiful mish-mash of sounds
Loving equally, the brilliance and the dark
When she finally lets staff escort her back to her room
She giggles at the echo of their footsteps
Interrupting the silence




In the middle of the night
She asks for tea thick with cream
Unruly auburn curls fall over the frayed collar of her robe
As she tilts her head bringing lips to cup
Takes a noiseless, delicate
Refined sip
Before allowing her father to speak

He speaks loudly of vendors and beggars
The noise and bustle of the shoe repair shop
Speaks until she smells the earthy scent of leather
The slightly musty odor of aged wood
Feels the heat from the stove warming her shoulders
Sees the bright flowered curtains her mother made
And the yellow shop sign with its bold brown lettering

Stands quietly by when the butcher rushes in
He has lost a heel; can her father repair it now?
Understands that her father feels obliged to help his neighbor
As he mends the shoe quickly with twelve tiny nails
Holds his hands up to the butcher, shaking his head
Who would take payment for so small a thing?
The butcher’s beefy hands leave bloody prints on the counter

She talks with the postman when he comes
Apologizing for the lateness of his delivery
With the fishermen who tell her that the salmon are running
And with Mrs. Stein who offers her a dozen roses at half price
This she answers with a cascade of laughter
For what would she do with roses in such a place as this?
Where bedtime tea is served in paper cups?





Joy Arnett
January 2008