[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/ZiolkowskiCare.mp3″]
The residents don’t want to make Valentines,
but I cut hearts with child-safe scissors.
I was a surgeon, Reid sullenly declares as he colors.
He fights to stay in the lines.
Meanwhile, Edith has spilled the glue
& Nell wants to start her card over.
My lap is piled with hearts
so I hum “Blue Moon”
because a familiar tune calms them
the way bringing home bouquets once did for me.
I’d leave that Target with my cart packed with groceries,
setting the flowers in the passenger seat beside me.
Now the residents are singing louder,
but I am still cruising along some dark road in Alabama,
breathing in the rotting mouths of those flowers,
when the former surgeon puts his hand on my wrist.
Don’t get carried away, he says, taking my scissors.
I lift my foot off the gas.