They Transferred Her Home To Die Poem by David McLansky

They transferred her home to die
Comforted by a silent lie;
Her kidneys worn and plainly failing
She couldn’’t stand, even beside the railing.
Once more she was a swaddled baby
Would she survive? The answer; maybe.
But she was glad to be back home
Amid her brightly colored gnomes.
This immigrant of World War II
Had mopped marble floors, her husband too;
Janitors of apartment buildings,
They found the work quite fulfilling,
For it offered them a chance to save,
To buy houses that they then parlayed
Into greater and greater modest wealth
Which she slyly banked with gleeful stealth;
She gave birth to three big sons
Proud of the work that she had done,
For in the end she could give them money,
They called her “Ma’, she called them “Honey.”
But gradually she couldn’t walk,
She slid her feet and then they’d balk,
She fell while trying to retrieve the mail,
Walmart was having a pillow sale.
She lay within the hospital bed,
A giant bandage on her head,
Her forearms: purple, her grey hair matted,
A broken doll, dazed and shattered;
Here lies a kind woman safe at home,
Confused by gadgets like the phone;
Who refused to live upon the dole
Who worked all her life, God Bless her Soul.