THE OLD FERLINS SANITORIUM: T.B. TO A.A.

a thousand windows stacked like altar wood,

each sad eye warmed by sun and fever,

one hundred crosses hung in glass,

some clear, some opaque,

many fractured, broken, jagged.... 

shiplap siding, scabs of peeling colorless paint,

boxing up memories

of dissolving lungs coughing up blood,

inhaling hope...

              there…

my mother’s old room . I once

stood on the razored grass,

a kindergarten haircut to match,

looking up through her myriad panes,

she was strong,

elbows like derricks planted on the sill

hoisting fists of steel

supporting a tiny chin, a smile,

a gown and necklace my dad had given her

dangling like a noose...

now, forty years later I am here again,

looking out of the same window,

through different panes, staring

at the razored lawn,

empty.

end/Michael Bogar