Christina's World
By John Delonas
All my life has been a warm,
August afternoon,
Waking with burning eyes,
Fatigued by rising.
Sitting in one window,
Waiting for a new breeze
To cool my tongue;
My mother sits in the other.
Three flights down my
Father once carried me;
It was the going up,
The constant raisin',
The abrasive, the
Abrasion of up and down
That wore him down.
The wheelchair
Of airflight aluminum,
The books:
BAS-- to BYZANTIUM--
The diploma is yellow
As the tea
And the walls that
Fill me
With
Immobility.
The care,
The constant care,
Have done my will to care
No harm;
I had a love,
But the heating pad is warm.
Can the legless love?
Or the dumb respond
To a serenade?
When mother is gone--
Will I be afraid?
Mother -- -- Lover
Carri-er, starryeye-her,
Gondolas on the beach,
Grandchildren across the way,
Tide ebbing out of reach.