Always Carol

Under the weight of her tangled gray hair
Always Carol,
walks alone
bent and spent
lugging grocery bags  
made of concrete,
discounted fruit,
and a long-drawn-out story
chained to her shoes

She shuffles along
Like Always Carol always does
towards a distant memory
Where only weeds are growing
and a punctual bus labeled JFK BLVD
screams by her,
exhausting fumes
filling her coat with debility
then backfires
into her loaf of white bread

That is the scope of her day.
Grocery, then back.
Side walking back home
Watching crack after crack
Pass beneath her view
A slow demarcation
Called Invalid’s Path
for those who are not valid anymore.

In November
she barely made the daily metro,
and rode the angled avenue
To meet Lee Harvey
Around 12:30
watching a free vintage movie,
at the book depository
where her warm bottled water
sat waiting,
to become a terrarium
for the solitary assassin of age

In the middle of the row
She sits where she is not seen
or smelled anyway,
and stares down the MGM lion
who roars first one way
and then the next,
and Always Carol watches that tired beast
every day,
and, finally yawning
falls asleep,
dreaming of the credits,
and holding donated Cuban popcorn.

America. We. Love. You. So. Much.
land of the free and home of the grave
Where an issue of Kleenex Monthly
and flowers
are delivered every
National Disability Independence Day
by motorcade
in stacked cartons
labelled only “THE LONELY”

She has reached her stop
On a grassy knoll
Where she cannot die any faster
But prefers a good mystery
that twists and turns
Like her bent neck
buckled the pavement
and dropped her
like a dead weight
near her half green half house
With half a street number
And a half-life of Always Carol
just shy of
History and Elm

Jeff Bender is a writer/artist who writes about life and has a life that is about his art. While the two skills often intersect, both reflect a zeal for the spontaneous, the curious and most things that are breathing. Always supplementing his stories with constructions and collages, his artwork is held in collections both regionally and internationally. In addition to his experience as a feature story writer, he has been published in numerous journals including Club Plum, Embers, Press Pause, and The North American Review. He holds an MFA in printmaking from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a BA in Art from the College of Wooster.