Poem

Red TulipsI think I would have turnedOut the same no matter what;Dad or no dad,Broken home or whole,Happy mom, bitter broken soul.In the end I don ’t feel any of it really mattered.Father, mother, sister, brother;They just wandered in one nightFrom the alley shadows of memory.I didn'thaveto put them all on stage,Give them parts in my own private play.I have reached the age of no longer caringAbout finely crafted back stories:Turning points, betrayals and asking who ’s to blame.Every family fragments with the passage of time.Sifted through the sieve of individual lives,Sometimes it's the only way kinship survives.Walking the dog one day I came upon A random troika of red tulipsBursting from a strip of grassy bermBetween the sidewalk and the street.They didn ’t belong there,So close to the cement curb.I caught myself trying to conjure a provenanceAnd gave it up, let my mind go blank.The dog was patient, accustomed by nowTo my sudden unpredictable pauses.Look at those damn flowers, I said aloud,The way the petals caught the afternoon sun!It was the color of half-asphyxiated blood,Just enough oxygen to carry me home.5/13/20

Source: Buckeye Surgeon - May 12, 2020 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs