Two Poems by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

I Am So Lucky to Be Here

My daughter keeps telling me I am so lucky to be here.
She means instead of in her five-bedroom home,
Which always has space for another child
But not for a grandmother in a wheelchair.
I am so lucky to be here.
My room is yellow as the sun,
Which warms my face
When I roll out onto the porch
And endure people I have nothing in common with
Except age and abandonment.
For so long I dreaded being shut away from the world,
But I am so lucky to be here,
The best nursing home in Rhode Island,
Instead of where I would be if people knew
That what killed my unfaithful husband
Was not an accident.

“I Am So Lucky to Be Here” first appeared in Providence Journal

Simplify

Simplify, simplify, lectured Thoreau,
Chop your own wood and eat food that you grow.
Farming, however, is messy and gritty.
So I say: Simplify, live in the city!

“Simplify” first appeared in Light

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 220 poems published in a wide range of places, including ten in past issues of Sparks of Calliope.