I remember a miasma of scented bath powder <br />and the funereal fragrance of lilies. This fusion of odors <br />clutched onto visitors in the vestibule and pursued them <br />to the catacombs of the ill and dying. <br /> <br />My mother found herself among the ill and dying <br />and became one of them. <br /> <br />Woodmeadow Assisted Living Facilities—the home, <br />she called it. “Compartments of the damned, ” she dubbed it. <br /> <br />Our conversation always seemed to drift toward home <br />and memories of houses. And my mother’s reminiscences <br />arose and coalesced with the floral emanations <br />and bloomed in a way. <br /> <br />There was one house in which I had lived the bulk <br />of my boyhood. “What happened to the house on Route 12? ” <br /> <br />“I don’t remember that house.” she said, <br />crinkling her forehead to squeeze out the data, dry. <br /> <br />“The house where I planted the red maple tree; <br />where you planted candelabra bushes on the hill; <br />The house I remember most. The house <br />with the pomegranate tree. Remember the house? ” <br /> <br />“It burned down.” She said <br />and looked out the solitary window, wondering. <br />“It looks like rain.”<br /><br />Sonny Rainshine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/assisted-living/
