Lois Roma-Deeley

Okay. Not Okay.

I’m okay reading the paper.
I’m not okay checking my phone,
reading old messages--what went wrong,
how should I help, what could we do.
I’m okay walking to the mailbox
and not okay reaching in, finding
letters and cards wishing me a good day.
I’m okay cooking dinner.
Though when making your favorite food,
Baked Ziti and almond cookies,
I’m not okay
because that ripe banana sitting in the glass bowl
on my kitchen table,
just like the one you politely asked for
the last time you visited,
wounds me.
I’m okay vacuuming my house.
I’m not okay standing in your bedroom
with your mother, my daughter,
staring into your closet. The leather jacket
we gave you hanging there like yesterday’s promise.
Your worn shoes piled, one on top the other,
as if you just slipped them off,
the sweat marks ringing the edges.
I’m okay writing this to you.
As if you can hear me. As if
I’ve put my arms around you
and held you tight.

Lois Roma-Deeley’s most recent poetry collection is Like Water in the Palm of My Hand (2022). Her previous books include The Short List of Certainties, winner of the Jacopone da Todi Book Prize (2017); High Notes (2010)--a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist; northSight (2006); Rules of Hunger (2004). Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and journals, nationally and internationally including Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series, Post Road, Spillway, The Columbia Poetry Review and many more. She’s Associate Editor of the poetry journal Presence. Roma-Deeley is Poet Laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona. (2021-2024). www.loisroma-deeley.com