I Sit on the Big Chair

     at the children’s table. Bring sharpened pencils.
Keep track of our time and wonder, always,
how I can help these flowering spirits.

Some trust too quickly, which triggers a moment’s
panic. Others already know an unsafe world,
but even these

share at odd moments, reveal troubles
at home, present harsh facts
of their lives, then wait

as if asking,
Is this right? Is this
the way it’s supposed to be?

They hope. Can be delighted,
proud of mastering the inexplicable
of a few days before.

One makes up stories. Draws monsters
of red fire and blue water, he defeats
after they’ve eaten everything in sight.

Another pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry,”
she tells me, as her class heads out for a field trip,
“I’ll see you next week.”

The smallest often says she’s hungry. Pretends
to sleep at the table. Seems to be waiting
for adults to settle so she can wake.

During Covid

     when my wife was caught up in another frenzy of house cleaning, I saw her worry lines had deepened,
recognized for once the courage in the muscles holding up her smile.

While the urge to clean she feels now in her seventies is measured in hours she can work before resting,
sometimes she labors until she drops, needs a Sit down, let me do that, or Can’t that wait?

There was a time she’d buy a new car to fix her life that day, that minute.

Begin moving a heavy sofa because she couldn’t stand a room anymore. Bring home a new rug. Return
later with a new chair to match. Replace a lamp too squat for a just-acquired table. Change sofa pillows,
now all the wrong color, until everything old in the room was gone.

Slowly, in the line of our years together, compulsion has withdrawn, contentment crept in.

Joseph Hardy, a reformed human resource consultant, lives in Nashville, Tennessee. His work has been published in: Appalachian Review, Cold Mountain Review, Inlandia, Poetry City, and Poet Lore among others. He is the author of a book of poetry, “The Only Light Coming In”, Bambaz Press Los Angeles, 2020.