The Smile

   by Joseph Gascho

Since the clot broke off

and travelled from his atrium

and took up lodging in his brain

he calls me Joe—and

Sam and Fred and even Sue

are also Joe, and so’s the jam

spread on his toast,

the toast he now picks up

with his left hand.

He still can finger all the notes,

but cannot grip the bow, can’t stand,

like he did last week at the Royal Opera House

when the maestro pointed her baton at him.

The Times, laid on the table by his aide,

displays the critics’ raves

about his playing of the Bach chaconne.

Face smeared with orange,

he looks at it, then me, then beams.

Is it the flavor of the marmalade that makes him smile?

  Hippocrates Anthology, 2022. (Commended poem)