We Just Have To Make The Best Of It... Poem by RIC BASTASA

these are the lines of
a 90 year-old widower just put in the nursing home
trying to put the pieces again
those past parts
no longer fit as she agrees with her son
that she does not serve
any purpose
at all in that old house
with a closed door never to be opened again
how she resigned from the usual cooking and baking
and putting the flowers in the vase
half watered
as she talks to another wrinkled woman sitting next to her
she mutters, 'Lady, we just have to make the best of what we are now'

Then the other quipped, 'Do i look ninety? '

Outside the nursing home,
the snow begins to fall.