Elizabeth Akin Stelling

UNINVITED

       after meeting Hal Sirowitz

I sat down at an empty table to rest. The corner
of my eyes caught young hands pushing
a walker. The man sat down to eat lunch.
I ate his face; his large brown eyes looked sad,
his lips seemed dry as teeth chewed slowly, and
something about him brought my father's
former self to the chair beside me. I asked
the man if he was a poet, he motioned yes.
Pulling one of his books out of a back pack
after placing the last bite of a salty pretzel
into his mouth, he handed it over to me. I began
flipping through the middle pages. Something I
always do-- never start in the beginning
when you can get to the meat of a person. A
child jumping in toward the deep end on faith.
My father whispered "he and I have more
in common than hating razors and serious
eyebrows." Parkinson's, an unwelcome guest
had sat down next to the man, my daddy, and I.

Elizabeth Akin Stelling hails from Texas, transplanted to New Jersey by way of St. Louis. She is a wife, mother, chef, a writer, an activist, and insomniac. Stelling is managing editor of Z-composition Magazine, and has works published in vox poetica, Referential Magazine, getSpark, NJMonthly, Wild River Review, River Poets Quarterly, RePrint, Tuck Magazine, trade magazine- BizN4NJand LamplighterNJ. Her food poetry has been heard on CroptoCuisine Radio.