He’s here
parking along that bend,
opening the trunk.
Unforgetting of his friend,
the one mom loves so much:
Singular red rose, free
of thorns. He’s done this since
I was young.
Strolling towards the doorstep,
sliding past dogs and
sneakers-
turned over from laps:
Sprinting and zooming,
room-to-room, thinking
it’ll make him come soon.
It won’t,
but they don’t mind,
for a man of 89 has already thrived
on exhaustion.
The brace of his knees,
faint jingle of missing keys,
even hallucination.
He’s here,
crouching for a hug
in that tiny foyer, waving
at the bunnies and they’re
play.
Scanning for seats-
oh, very close, just that way-
sorrowfully sitting
as the Binny’s worker
leads him astray.
The standard is set-
but we must rearrange
how we are
for his young age-
moving & grooving,
jiving & tapping
to Billie Holliday.
A new song released by
her,
we must listen soon;
He hums it to the nurse
setting down his cane.
He’s here.
He’s climbing
the Sears Tower before
the Willis was made;
a Pinot grigio
bubbling
far away.
He’s there.
He’s here.
He’s most definitely here.
Lelaina Kelekian is a current undergraduate student with a Writing-Intensive English major, Communications and Medieval Studies minors.
Kelekian says about the piece: “Both [‘Ritual of the Alive?’ and ‘Consolation’] are born from observation, instilled through necessity. A need for completion in knowingly fleeting moments, but nicking yourself on the sharpest end of a puzzle piece; Dullness never being guaranteed. They can live on here: words imitating nostalgia’s bittersweet truth.”
“Before the Race”, Edgar Degas (1889).