Produced by Dennis Camire
This week’s poem is by Robert Paul Allen of Orland.
Almost Home
By Robert Paul Allen
After last month’s cycle of chemo
he stopped returning calls from hospice.
The growing mass in his abdomen
pushes up against his belt
as he rolls his chair out onto the dock
jutting into the granite-bound lake.
Waves from a passing speedboat
crash over wooden slats
and spill into the water.
Passing boaters wave as if they were old friends
happy to see him out soaking up the sun.
Uncrossing his legs consumes all his breath.
He gulps at the air like a just landed fish,
then settles. Shadows lengthen.
A gathering cool supplants the sultry haze.
Dusk descends, boats return
to be moored into long rows
of white canvas berthing slips.
They float on the still flatness,
stepping stones to the unknown.
The setting sun turns the high clouds
a jarring pink, until the whiteness
is buried under shovelfuls of dark.
Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu
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