Into the Waiting Room
By Carol Nolde
I press my hip against the door and haul
the wheels up over the sill, pull
the weighted chair into the narrow hall,
eye another closed door, full
of despair at the indifferent able
who easily open and enter closed gates
who stare at us when we disrupt the stable
quiet, the spell cast on those who wait.
You are my cargo; I your wife.
Together we bear the broken shell that holds
the remains of the riches of life,
an unseen story that still unfolds
to a man and a woman and their sixty-year vow
to hold true to the strength that love allows.
Carol Nolde lives in Westfield, NJ, where she taught English and creative writing. Her poems have appeared in many publications including the anthologies Knowing Stones: Poems of Exotic Places, Love Is Ageless-Stories About Alzheimer’s Disease, Child of My Child, Joys of the Table, and Forgotten Women. She is the author of the chapbook Comfort in Stone (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and the chapbook Things Live After (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and a full-length book, Emblems (Finishing Line Press, 2020). She earned a BA from the State University of New York, Albany and an MA from Middlebury College.