Two Poems by Martha Clarkson

by Martha Clarkson

The Last View

Teenager, trying to fall asleep

I worried my father would die

driving home drunk,

crash into the big oak

along the speedy median

and I’d be stuck with my mother.

But when the time came at 94

it was just an undramatic fade

huge oxygen tank heaving

by the bed, my stepmother asleep

on the living room pull-out.

I paced the assisted-living halls

wandered into in a game room

where we’d once played bridge

felt-covered card table

the thrill of a six-hearts bid

or the disappointment of passing.

Across the courtyard was his window

sheers pulled, just the glow

of the low wattage bulb

we’d bought to comfort him

but really was for us

to not have to look

too brightly at things.

I stayed at the sill

stared at the simple square of glass

as if something or someone

might move, cause a shadow

when nothing and no one had for days.

What other rooms

in that transitory building

were holding death

what other daughters

stood alone in strange

rooms grieving.

My Mother Typed the Start of a Novel

on a scroll of now-yellowed paper

a discovery upon her death

so few things saved, but this

corny and romantic

two things she never was

a young heroine pining for a man

from her dormer window

blonde, like me

and two more things:

named “Martha” and an only child

written long before she met my father

she couldn’t have known