The Closet As She Left It

Blank Verse Using Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter By LindaAnn LoSchiavi

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Deprived by his wife’s absence, grieving guts
My father.  The cremation over now,
Her ashes urned and glowing with repose,
Inspection of her closet is the next
Unmaking, contents intimate, perfumed.

Attired in nightgowns longer than a year,
My mother needed nothing stored inside:
Complacent church clothes, pastel linen sheaths,
Insomniacal sling-back heels, upright,
Attentive, waiting for the toll of tread,
Accessories forgotten, unloved, cold.

Sharp hangers await uninvited guests,
Prepared to scar.  Should caretakers encroach,
Conspirators rise: boucle knits scratching,
Steel eye-hooks, belts resisting, stuffy air
Redolent of her scent almost forcing
The trespasser to leave belongings there,
Mourned privately by what caressed her skin,
The nude audacity of death dismissed
As long as things remain, her door pulled shut.

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This 20-line poem is from my WIP, "Cancer Courts My Mother."

It was inspired by the long interval when I left my NYC life to be the sole caregiver of my terminally ill mother at my parent's home in the Sun Belt.

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Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a four-time nominee for The Pushcart Prize, wrote these poetry books: Elgin Award winner "A Route Obscure and Lonely," "Women Who Were Warned,” "Messengers of the Macabre," "Apprenticed to the Night," and "Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide."