Johanna Shapiro, PhD
January 20, 2000
You were drunk
You crashed your car
You died
You were twenty-four
What else was lost?
Girl’s spleen,
Leg, spirit
Boy’s speech, sight
Thinking mind
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.
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
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
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 .”
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
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
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
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
When I was little I thought
women were flat-chested
like men
only they had long purple
squiggles across their chests
I thought
this way because cancer
filched both my mother’s breasts
when I
was born
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Death is not my lover
– that would be morbid –
nor even my best friend
– though some say he can be that –
He is merely become
my near neighbor
having taken up residence next door
We are friendly
in a cool sort of way
Sometimes we wave
when we are pulling out from our driveways
I off to my work
he off to… his