by Claudia M. Reder
When I arrived at your room at rehab
four residents were seated on metal folding chairs
in a straight line facing your bed.
The moment I arrived, they receded like slow tide.
I took one chair they left, stroking your forehead,
glad you hadn’t been alone, these hours in hospice.
Earlier that week, when I read the line by Hughes,
‘Let the rain kiss you,’ to third graders
the children’s foreheads furrowed,
How can the rain kiss you?
We went out onto the large gassy field
and opened our arms and lifted our faces
and the rain spilled gently onto our cheeks.
We felt the tickle of the tiny drops,
a whisper of gratitude.
And that’s how I felt sitting beside you
wishing your favorite classical music
station was playing, wishing you were
in your own bed with its deep blue cover,
with your things we had given away still around you,
not in a hospital bed on this brown tiled floor.
We had learned to put a cup of water
where you can reach it; and what to say
when nothing more can be said;
we held hands in that intentional quiet.
I remember your nightly whispers,
how time moved past your armchair
and out into the hallway,
and your shadow moved to the other side
of the room and then through the door.
Claudia M. Reder is the author of How to Disappear, a poetic memoir, (Blue Light Press, 2019). Uncertain Earth (Finishing Line Press), and My Father & Miro (Bright Hill Press). How to Disappear was awarded first prize in the Pinnacle and Feathered Quill awards. She was awarded the Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize from Lilith Magazine.
Emerge Literary Journal 