Polio

A Poem By: Lee A. Zito

The sun shines bright

through the window into the old fashioned room

Fifties wall-paper, fifties furniture.

Close the shade please she whispered.

At the dusk of life

the sun still doesn't bring her joy.

It never had.

As a child there was no playing,

no adoration for the warm rays of sunshine.

She had betrayed the sun

therefore she grew sick.

Disease caressing her with seductive death

Dancing with her, passionately.

She loved the dance with death.

She knew his ways, and it knew hers.

And suddenly it left, but never taking her along.

On the floor, still she lay

with wavy streams of loneliness.

He left and although she was alive,

he had taken her life.

Here you are now, Auntie dear.

Screaming, no, screaching

"Don't touch the walls!"

Of course not, I won't...

It is still the same, everything's still the same

Except you, Auntie.

Woman at left is painter Suzanne Valadon

A man and a woman performing a modern dance.

Cotswold-style morris dancing in the grounds of We...

How will you dance now?

How will you dance with death?

Especially since he left you.

Never to dance again.