To Mom
She slouches in the chair
whose alarm will screech
when she gets up.
“What is this?”
she shouts
indignant
that this has happened-
the chair,
the bad food,
the hospital bed,
eighty-nine years of living
and now her hands-
bruised walnuts-
can’t crack open enough
to hold a spoon.
Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in the English Department, where she directs the Poetry Outreach Center. Poetry collections include: Remembering Fireflies and Secrets of Sheets (Plain View Press); The Bonsai Curator and Van Gogh’s Ear; (Cervena Barva Press), Daring Daughter/Defiant Dreams (A Gathering of Tribes) and The Plagiarist (Dos Madres Press). Several children’s books have been published, too, Visitation Rites (Diversion Press) and Homer, the Little Stray Cat (Red Balloon Press) the most recent.