Poems (by Hal Sirowitz)

The Speed of Mice

When the Parkinson’s medication
wears down, I turn into Cinderella.
My means of transportation
slows down to the speed of
a pumpkin pulled by mice.
My shoes still fit my feet.
But I take them off. They
make too much noise as
I drag them across the floor.

On One Side is She

I’ve been a Parkinson’s patient for so long
that I can do it in my sleep. And I do.
I curl up between my wife and the alarm clock
on my night table. From my wife’s side
I get affection. She never gets mad when
I wake her up stretching my legs to delay
them from becoming rigid. And from
my clock, I get insurance that time
moves only one way – forward. And
that’s the direction I’m going. I don’t
look back at what might have been
if Parkinson’s wasn’t thrust upon me.
I just try to bear my discomfort quietly
without waking my wife too much.

Learning New Words

My Parkinson’s medicine makes
my arms shake. The medical
term is dyskinesia. That’s
one of the benefits of the disease –
you learn new words. You
also learn new meanings for
old words. When I say my
windows are wide open,
I’m not referring to the computer
or those in a house. It means
my medication is working.
A half closed window means
the medicine is wearing down.
A closed window means everything
I do will now become a struggle.
I just pray the window won’t get stuck.

The Pursuit of Laziness

It seems like the only thing you learned
at college was how to be lazy, Father said.
We didn’t feel the need to teach that at home.
If you had studied American history you’d
have noticed that our founding fathers
made no mention of it in the Bill of Rights.
Nowhere is it written that one has the right
to be lazy. Since you’re a citizen of this country,
I’m not going to allow you to be lazy in my house.
If you don’t like that rule you’re free to swim
a few miles off shore where the laws
of our government don’t apply. But
I doubt if you’ll be able to be lazy out there.
You’d have to spend all your time just staying afloat.

A Step Above Cows

I read somewhere that a cow
can only walk up stairs but
not down. Even though I have
Parkinson’s, I’m a step ahead
of a cow. I can walk up or down
without much trouble. And the
one time I fell, I was walking up
but lost my balance and fell down,
which proves that I’m not
a cow, because for a split second,
I had the choice of where to fall—
up or down—and unceremoniously
took the down route, because it
takes you faster to where you
want to go—at the beginning
of the stairs, so I could do it right this time.

Crumbs

Don’t eat any more food in your room,
Mother said. You’ll get more bugs.
They depend on people like you.
Otherwise, they would starve.
But who do you want to make happy,
your mother or a bunch of ants?
What have they done for you?
Nothing. They have no feelings.
They’ll eat your candy. Yet
you treat them better than you treat me.
You keep feeding them.
But you never offer me anything.

The Two Ends of a Cat

Your sister says she loves the cat,
Father said, but it’s your mother
who cleans her bowl & changes
her kitty litter. She does the dirty work.
Your sister does the enjoyable jobs- she
feeds & brushes her. She only deals with
the front of the cat & leaves the back half
for your mother. But a cat has both a front
& a back. By right she should be taking turns & not
leave your mother in charge of the most difficult part.

The Absence of Light

God works in mysterious ways, Father said.
But he’s not half as mysterious as your mother.
He said, Let there be light. And there was light.
I don’t see anything mysterious about that.
He did what He said He’d do.
Your mother says, Let’s not be late for the movie.
Yet she takes so long getting dressed
that it doesn’t pay to go. Then she
gets mad that I don’t take her any place.
God created light where there was only darkness.
She only creates confusion.