Stolen
I wheel my mother into her nursing home;
we reach her room. She asks, "Where am I?"
The bloated unofficial Shrek doll she's somehow
acquired from somebody sits on the windowsill,
glassy-eyed. I try to reassure her, put the TV on,
kiss her cold cheek, hug her but she's still confused.
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Then I'm strolling in the grounds, smoking my cigar,
trying to compose myself to drive; a squirrel steals
a sickle pear, races across the grass; a cardinal flies
into the larch; swallowtails drift round the ginkgo.
Beyond the old pear tree, my mother's window:
the fake Shrek doll
ls green in the corner.
Christopher T. George
Sickle Pears by Childe Hassam
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