Read More: A Brief Interview with Claire Scott
Dead Line
The line is dead
It has been dead for six months
I pay $69 a month for a dead line
I never call AT&T to have it fixed
Why you may ask (if you haven’t turned the page)
You don’t know the half of it
A year ago my mother lost her mind
now in a home (well, hardly a home) with others
still looking for theirs, or maybe having forgotten they ever had one
Inmates doddering and drooling, soiling their Depends
Getting lost in hallways, hollering at caregivers,
Determined to escape at night
She called me fifty times a day
They are starving me
They lock me in a closet
Steal my money
Get me out of here
You are useless
I despise you
I cut the line to the phone
With a pair of sharp scissors
Found in the back of a kitchen drawer
And that’s the all of it
October 30th
he steps into a crosswalk Subscribers can read the full version by logging in.
carefully checking
the light is green
again
swinging a tennis racquet
hop-skipping across
eager to meet his friends
or
cane click-clacking
as his twisted body step-
stutters across the street
again
a car turns left
sunblind?
texting?
his body thrown
again […]
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Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. She was also a semi-finalist for the Pangaea Prize and the Atlantis Award. Claire was the grand prize winner of The Maine Review’s 2015 White Pine Writing Contest. Her first book of poetry, Waiting to be Called, was published in 2015. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
Read More: A Brief Interview with Claire Scott