Mother
Won’t Move
Cheryl Snell
There’s a hook
in the hall
where keys once dangled.
There’s no escape from change
that clouds the mind or sky.
It’s for your own good,
her boy had said,
pocketing the jangling ring.
Behind drapes fisted shut,
a barricade chair on buckling slats
leans hard against the doorknob.
This front will pass, given
the woman stubborn with survival,
flashlight in hand, alone in an eye
blind to change closing in.
