Even though he isn’t here, he’s here.
I can see him sitting next to me—
a Cessna Skycatcher soars overhead.
We listen to a gaggle of grackles
fly across the golf course beyond
his treasured weeping cherry tree.
He offers me a fig, explaining, the fig
Is actually a flower, and we eat the seeds.
He reminds me to savor his harvest
of Meyer lemons drooping before us.
He asks me to water his rose bushes
since he can’t maneuver the hose
as well as he used to from his wheel chair.
I suck on a bittersweet Meyer lemon.

# # #

Milton P. Ehrlich, Ph.D. is an 87-year old a psychologist who began writing poems after the age of seventy. He has published many of his poems in periodicals such as the Toronto Quarterly, Wisconsin Review, Mobius, The Chiron Review and the New York Times.

Photo:  Joanna Kosinska