Johanna Shapiro, PhD
In memoriam, Marcia Weinstein
What I wonder about
What I worry about
Is that we really didn’t talk about it
Enough
Or really at all
Only obliquely
The way light bounces off a mirror
At an angle
The way eyes inadvertently
Slant from an ugly face
All our conversations on the subject
Dribbled away
“Let’s wait and see”
“I just don’t know”
We told each other
Personal Writings
I wait for the sound of his words
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
I wait for the sound of his words, expecting them to drop like shards of light on my own confusion. Still he sits there, without speaking. Perhaps he is collecting his thoughts. Chin in hand, he seems puzzled, even ten years later. Then, as if pressing a button, he begins to speak. He remembers he had the day off. It was a typically beautiful southern California day, sun glinting off the Pacific Ocean, waves begging companionship. So he decided to use this free day, this day outside time and space, to go surfing. He remembers also that when he came home, it was already late in the afternoon, the sun almost used up. He can’t remember why he switched on the TV, he didn’t often watch because the sound was broken, but that day he did. He watched without sound in the fading rays of the sun as the city burned and died. Maybe he remembers more, but now, again, he is silent. There is no sound between us.
ACCIDENT on PCH
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
12/15/11
We are sitting
drinking coffee, laughing
talking about our kids
The day is bright and happy
The air is crisp, the sky blue
the clouds white, the trees green
The people around us
are laughing too
glad to be
drinking coffee on such a day.
Drowning
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
When my grandmother died
My mother’s grief knew no bounds
It raged and roiled
An angry current
Overrunning its banks
Spilling inarticulate and destructive
From bedroom to living-room
A soggy flood of feeling
Knocking over tables and chairs
The way my grandmother did
When she was drunk
Each one of my mother’s tears
Perfectly transparent
Like a drop of the vodka
My grandmother drank neaty
Straight from the bottle
She hid in the chandelier
Driving with Grandpa
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
After my grandpa stopped
being a big city surgeon
he moved to the Ozarks
and became a country doc
When we visited,
my brother and sister
stayed back to eat pancakes
play dirtball or catch fireflies
After Sextuple Bypass Surgery
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
“You requested a visitation,” the chaplain said,
hovering doubtful and black-garbed beside my bed.
“Wrong room,” I said , not unkindly.
Then noting his collar, added
“I’m old and sick,
not Catholic.”
He looked forlorn
so I said he could stay ,
even offered him my jell-o,
which he ate , by the way.
“I have nightmares,” I mentioned.
“Is it the morphine? ” he questioned.
“Maybe. Still, every night I’m standing
on an empty stage .
The audience has left.
I’m alone. I’m afraid .”
The Eyes Have It
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
If you’re lucky
the doctor enthused
these drops will save your sight
Still trying to get my mind around
this new fact
that I was going blind
I asked about side effects
Hardly worth mentioning,
he said
his back already to me
as he noted in his chart
the decline and fall of my vision
Etiquette for the Very Ill
Johanna Shapiro, PhD and Deane H. Shapiro, Jr., Ph.D.
Let’s say you get cancer
or have a heart attack
or get hit by a bus
You may think you need a doctor
or a hospital
But what you really need
is a lesson in etiquette
Downstairs My Father is Dying
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Downstairs my father is dying
Upstairs we are sleeping
It is 4:00 in the morning
A noise below jerks me awake
The death rattle? A call for help?
Heart thudding, I hurry down
the steep stairwell