TRAVEL POEM
Keys (August 5, 2020)
Keys (August 5, 2020)
In music, the relative minor
Of any major key
Is a minor third lower.
They share the same notes,
Arranged in a different order.
Major is usually considered happy
Minor, sad,
Demonstrating
How peaceably the two
Can coexist.
I keep all my keys on a hook by the door:
Keys to my apartment, two sets,
One for guests.
The key to an old bicycle lock,
Jeffrey’s bicycle,
The white Peugeot I inherited
When he died at 32.
It rusts in the basement.
I’m afraid to ride it
Because one Sunday,
Outside the Paris Commune,
I opened my car door in the wrong direction,
Nearly killing a woman
On her way to a waitressing job.
She went flying.
Her head just missed being smashed
Under the wheels of an oncoming car.
There are Mary Jo and Ted’s keys
To their formidable house in Bedford.
They said we could use it anytime,
Back when we were friends.
There are Nicole’s keys,
Who watches LUCY when we’re away.
Lucy loves Simon,
Nicole’s scrappy rescue.
She seems happy there.
But once,
When I left her,
She stared at the wall;
Wouldn’t turn around when
I tried to say goodbye.
I was so upset,
My back went out.

There are keys to somewhere
I don’t remember,
But I’m afraid to get rid of them
In case I do.
But
Behind them all,
First on the hook:
My mother’s keys.
She gave me keys to everywhere
She ever lived,
Both, with my father,
And then,
After his fifth heart attack,
Without him.
These keys mean
Home.
On a squiggly piece of green plastic,
Like a nappy strand of hair,
It looks like a loosened slinky,
Or seaweed.
Keys to her last place:
Kings Point,
Atlantic Beach, Florida.
Every house looks the same.
You have to be at least 55
To live there, and
Not necessarily,
A King.
After Diabetes
Made her wounds unmanageable
She closed the shades there
On her independence.
Then,
Casa Del Mar, in Boca,
The first of two nursing homes.
The second being The Atrium,
Where she lived until she died.
They sound glamorous, don’t they?
Casa Del Mar, The Atrium,
Like Gloria Swanson’s last
Hollywood hideaway;
Shades of castanets
And a rose between her teeth.
Or,
A glittering glass dome
Under which
Busy shoppers on Fifth Avenue
Perusing the Galleries,
Might sip cappuccino.
When they moved her
To the second floor
With the Alzheimer patients,
(She called them “the Alzies”
Insinuating, she hadn’t sunk that low)
Sometimes,
I would find her asleep
In a wheelchair in the kitchen,
Her hair unkempt,
Smelling like pee,
Her velour track suit
encrusted with various spills:
Ensure, mashed potatoes, jello.
Gently, I would wake her
As if she were my child,
Wheel her around,
Sing to her.
Mom.
If I said
“I love you, Mom,”
She’d say,
“I love you more,”
Staring off
Into the distance.

Kevin gave her
A beautiful photo he took:
She and I
One day
When we took her to the sea.
“Who is that,” she asked.
“You!” He said.
“No.” She said.
And pushed it away.
My sister Sheila convinced her
To stop dying her hair.
It was too labor
Intensive getting her to
And from the
Beauty Parlor,
Too much maneuvering.
But then she gave up;
Stopped looking in the mirror.
Sheila still feels guilty.
In the photo Kevin gave her,
Her hair was gray.
They wanted me
To remove her wedding ring.
I made up a story.
I was going to get it cleaned,
But she smelled the truth
And wouldn’t let me.
When they started the morphine
The nurse volunteered to take it off.
She had to grease the finger
To get it over the arthritic knuckle.
My mother winced
Crying out from her coma
Like a wounded animal.
I believe,
She thought she was no one,
Without that ring.
Sheila gave me the ring to sell,
But I won’t.
I would like it
If the keys
Could take me back
To the first house
Where we lived,
In Island Park.
Every day
During the summer,
We would go to the
Harbor Isle Beach Club .
I would swim,
Or catch killies in towels we dragged
Like nets through the water,
And she would play Mahjong
With the girls.
(She called the other Moms, girls.)
One time, at home,
I was upstairs in their room.
It was dusk
And getting dark.
I was watching “The Three Stooges,” on TV.
Suddenly
Overcome with panic and dread,
I ran downstairs to the kitchen,
Sobbing.
“Where do we go when we die?” I cried.
After only a moments pause
She said,
“To the Beach Club,
Just like here.
I’ll have a game with the girls,
And you?
You’ll be playing Shuffleboard!”
Comforted, I ate my dinner,
My existential angst,
And terror,
Not returning, for at least
A few years.
Today I told Sheila,
I was afraid the anti-depressant
Might have shut me off
From the place where poetry comes from.
Oh mom,
Smelling like Arpege,
Wearing a tight sweater:
Your cleavage bursting through
Like ripe tomatoes-
We are in
A global pandemic.
I could die!
I hope you were right.
April/May 2020