"Love at Assisted Living" by Deirdre Fagan

Love at Assisted Living

They say assisted living is more like
a dormitory than a nursing home.
Those arriving uncoupled, rarely stay so for long.
Those who arrive coupled and lose, often gain again.
The same is true if there is mobility, that is,
the opportunity to get around.

You wandered the halls not knowing what (or for whom)
you were looking, but knowing you needed to find a way
home. You called the closest you could call to
home — a cousin in Minnesota — your birth state —
where you hadn’t lived in some fifty years.
But she couldn’t assist you.

While she had helped move you in, she didn’t know
where you were when you phoned: which hall, which floor,
what memory you were lost inside. But soon you were found,
and the two of you sat side-by-side for months watching TV,
holding hands, solace and calm and ease — home at last.

When Valentine’s Day came, we sent chocolate-covered strawberries
and phoned, and I could almost hear the melted chocolate on your lips —
smell the sweet strawberry still left on both of your tongues. Your new love
spoke, thanking me for sending them — for enough for two — maybe, even, for you —

Later, TV blaring, you hid yourself in the bathroom and sat on the lid of the toilet,
whispering into the phone line: “Don’t tell anyone, but we rode the bus
to Walmart, and he bought me new bras and panties.” “He treats me like a queen,” you
gushed over and over and over — you who had to heal your own before bruises — the
strawberries that more than once fist-bloomed along your collarbone — had been made
queen just before memory’s final lapse. You never thought it could happen to you.

Still later, you began to sugarcoat over and over and over the late husband who had hurt you.
You had long since stopped asking about the new love who had been whisked out your
door, back to his own birth state — whose name was quickly lost on your still upturned
strawberry lips — but I’d like to think you went out a queen in fresh bloomers,
surrounded by scents of strawberry and smiling, his name the one
ripe on the tip of your tongue.

Deirdre fagan

Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, mother of two, and associate professor and coordinator of creative writing in the English, Literature, and World Languages Department at Ferris State University. Fagan is the author of the forthcoming memoir, Find a Place for Me (Regal House Publishing, 2022), a collection of short stories, The Grief Eater (Adelaide Books, 2020), a chapbook of poetry, Have Love (Finishing Line Press, 2019), and a reference book, Critical Companion to Robert Frost (Facts on File, 2007). Her poem, “Outside In,” was a Best of the Net finalist in 2018, and she is the poetry editor for Orange Blossom Review. Fagan writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and academic essays on poetry, memoir, and pedagogy. Meet her at deirdrefagan.com.

Headshot: Jennifer Johnson

Photo Credit: Staff