Saying a sad goodbye to Eileen

Blue-eyed Eileen



Her son Bill works upstairs...

at Waste Management.



Mildred Avenue.



WE LOVED TO LAUGH

Nearly every day for two years
I'd trot across our two lawns
to lunch with my new friend Eileen.

Her son Bill had brought her up
from Florida after her movie-star-handsome
husband died of emphysema.
The man simply could not breathe.

They wouldn't let her drive. We joked
to Bill that I lent her my car and off
she went.

In fact we did drive to Mildred Avenue
where she and her family grew up. Her
dad owned a trucking company - Junod -
and we clumb up the steps to her old home
but no one was there. With my camera
I clicked the brick house where she spent
two years at home from rheumatic fever.

The family loved her and were always kind.
She and I did clay together. Polymer. Fashioned
a ship that flew up to the sky.

The family dog Daisy crept into her room
at night and slept at the foot of her bed.
Like Eileen, the dog was getting old and how
she missed him, his fealty, his warm breath
when he left home, for good.

Slowly I began to notice she repeated herself
did it matter - yes! - I wanted my friend
to keep her mind. Like one season blending
into another, nothing could be done about it.

Soon Jill Alexander showed up, a companion,
who brought joy and laughter, as Eileen could
no longer remember where the living room was
or the rest of the house, dear God.

Every time I left the house I took Eileen
in my arms for the biggest hug there ever was.
And kissed her soft puckered cheeks
soft as the sky at morning.