An Entire Life
There’s nothing like
going through Great Aunt Priscilla’s house
after hospice has removed its equipment
and you’ve donated the wheel chair,
found the walker, flushed the pills,
debated what to do with an opened package
of adult diapers and her prosthetic breasts,
opened the blinds and windows to let in light and air,
found her old set of dentures,
her package of hearing aid batteries,
her crazy beaded chain attached to her reading glasses,
and
discovering a
lacy red nightgown,
stuffed in the back of a drawer,
in a style a couple of decades old,
a couple of sizes too small,
to remind you of
her life
before
“An Entire Life” first appeared in Kansas City Voices: A Periodical of Writing and Art.
Jamie Lynn Heller uses poetry as her caffeine. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee (Little Balkans Review 2014) and Best of the Net nominee (805 Lit + Art 2016). Her chapbook Domesticated was published in 2015 (Finishing Line Press). She received honorable mention awards in Whispering Prairie Press Writing Contest 2012, and Kansas Voices Contest 2017, 2011. For a complete list of publications see jamielynnheller.blogspot.com.
The Paddock Review 