Annie

Today at dVerse Poetics, Karin Gustafson invites us to write about the color green. This is a very rough draft of a poem I’d started years ago and never knew what to do with it. The rhyme and scansion are atrocious, but I submit it as is, for now, for the message. “Annie” is a composite of two patients I cared for in a nursing facility–both named Annie. There is some truth, some fiction to the story. If you are so inclined, let me know in comments what you see as the underlying message.

Annie

Annie—her name, as I recall.
Trouble dogged her through life.
A sad life, on the streets,
they whispered in the hall.

Her son wasn’t “normal,”
or so they reported.
Who knows who’s his daddy?
an old wag retorted.

She spoke not a word,
only stared out the window;
took meals in her room
so we nurses conferred.

Couldn’t get her to change,
to emerge from the hurt
of a life of abuse,
from her choices so strange.

Then one day in November
she made this request,
“My green bathrobe,” she begged,
“It will help me remember.”

I searched through her closet,
found nothing resembling
the color she wanted,
on hangers, in boxes.

That night after work
I stopped by the mall,
found just one jade-green robe
that I took to the clerk.

In the morning, her eyes
lit the room, and her smile—
made it all so worthwhile,
a delightful surprise.

Late that night, she expired,
they called me to see,
her hands held the fabric
the green she required.

That robe was her shroud
and a photo I’d found
in her fingers I placed
of a woman so proud.

A green robe she wore,
in her arms was a baby,
That one thing she cherished,
the child she bore.

No one knows the story
of the life that she chose,
but the wearing of green
was her peace and her glory.