Five Poems by Shelly Blankman

 

Her Last Breath

In memory of my mother Charlotte Hyatt, nee Wallenstein, 1930-2020

 

I’d been waiting for this phone call.

Mom’s passed, I expected. She’d been

slowly swallowed by Alzheimer’s for months.

Like a frog caught in the grips of a snake’s fangs, 

eyes wide open, suspended in time and space.

Frightened, wanting to escape, not knowing how.

 

I’d visit weekly, leave every time, her words echoing 

in my head. Sometimes I love you, sometimes GO HOME.

Other times, wanting to leave with me, not knowing this

is where she now lived. The safety of nurses and aides

singing to her, feeding her, making certain she didn’t

fall. As time passed, she’d talk about family until her voice 

 

would glide into garble, and I knew that phone call would

be coming soon enough. Every day I’d wait for the phone’s

ring to fracture the silence of my fears. I’d trudge through 

days, trying to block out her bedraggled look, her once-stylish 

hair now waist-length, rancid, uncombed. Stained sweats 

replacing skirts and neatly pressed blouses she’d always worn.

 

The stench from trying to clean herself when she was dirty,

didn’t have the strength, didn’t want anyone else to help 

her. Being afraid that the staff was trying to poison her water 

and food. Living in a world I was supposed to live in, too.

That call finally came. My sister-in-law’s voice first: Mom

can hear you but she can’t speak. Then on the phone, the hissing.

 

She was still in the snake's fangs, but not for long. I love you

I muttered through tears, knowing I’d spoken to her last breath.

 

 

Behind the Smile

 

He leaves for morning, freshly pressed jacket

slung over his arm, tie knotted perfectly against 

his starched shirt, his greying hair, carefully combed.

No one knows the mess he’s left behind closed doors.

 

He wears a wide smile like a badge, waves to neighbours,

shouts in his hearty radio voice “Hi, how ya’ doing?” They all

smile back and wave as if they know him. They only 

see The Smiling Man. Not the man behind closed doors.

 

He leaves skeletons in closets everywhere, 

secrets everyone in the family knows and no

one dares tell. No one risks opening a door

to show the searing pain that remains inside.

 

Each day, the he leaves beneath his shiny shoes

a path of breaks and bruises like a badly

damaged carpet. And the nap of that carpet will 

stick like glue to the soul of every family member 

 

as each struggles through life without ever opening 

the door or closets the man left unlocked.

The Tipped Scale

She tries not to weigh life on a scale of struggles, but her tears

blur her future with a presence of pain. She swallows her tears,

knowing pain always passes, juice only sweetens as fruit ripens

with age. But when scabs are picked while still fresh, blood spills

just as red. How can she balance the throb of new wounds when 

old ones have never quite healed? Years of abuse have drained her,

stained her soul, still trigger nightmares that she just can’t shake.

Memories hemorrhage in black ink,  blare on broadcasts, wherever

she turns, entrenching her on battlegrounds she thought she’d escaped.

If she could strip back to the bareness of innocence, realize her scale 

had not broken but tipped, she could weigh her struggles against her

successes, taste the delight in what no one can steal. Maybe then 

her soul, now so laden with pain that it echoes inside her, would tame.

She could open the door with each succulent sunrise, like a beautiful 

sapling stalwart against strong winds, she could face each new day with

fresh hope for survival, leaving fermented thoughts to wither in the wind.

Look for the Lights

In times of darkness, look for the lights

flickering hope in the fog, those moments

when silhouettes transform to flesh

of neighbours, now friends, of passersby,

now people with kind faces, older, younger,

wearing burkas and kippahs, dashikis, and hijabs.

This is not the time for turning away or hiding.

There is still too much light, too much colour to see,

too much life to grasp, too little time to waste.

It’s so dark, I may stumble, but

if I look for the lights, I won’t fall.

Nature’s Miracle

She will grow gently with the breath of each breeze.

This sweetness of nature still misted from birth, her

spots still faded in fur. She tries to stand on quaking

legs, but she wobbles and collapses, like a marionette

with missing strings. She’ll stand, but not for long. Her

spindly frame of bones collapsing like origami folds, and

again she stands erect, exhausted, but triumphant.

A miracle of nature, a giraffe calf, enters the world.

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband of 43 years. They have two sons, Richard and Joshua, who live in New York and Texas, respectively. They have filled their empty nest with four rescue cats and a dog. Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly with the publication of her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, and Muddy River Poetry Review, and Open Door Magazine, among others.