Afternoon at Villa Bonita

by Laura Morefield

 

Maria’s white hair sweeps back toward remnant gray
like a cloud drawing near to thunder.
She smiles politely at the familiar stranger
who shares her last name, trims her nails, sits
with her in the languid afternoon.
Her gaze shifts, smile falls
aside, its purpose spent.

Maria doesn’t hear her room’s only sound,
the slow tick…tick of her tired clock.  Her hearing aid
curls on the side table,
a snail abandoned to careless air.

She closes her eyes, shuttering sight,
laying vision down beside hearing.
Her Toltec nose and whiskered jowls
fall forward over hands
folded just so in her folded lap.

Hands like rose petals,
so eager to burst their skin.

Light melts around Maria, folds into her black
wheelchair. It lingers in her stormy hair, slips
behind her pendant head, bowed, drooping
like a lily over still hands.
Her breath is slow—
effortful as she works,
fighting battles, running hills, circling the wagons.

Yesterday’s gift of stargazer lilies
spread wide, speckled throats,
Collecting the afternoon sun.
They powder the air with pungent life.
They insist
Upon the nose.

A frown gathers, then smoothes from her spotted forehead.
Maria sleeps.

I keep watch between two pools of light,
awaiting noon’s slippage
into night.