A Wake-Up Call by Milton Ehrlich
I woke up this morning
with the sight and scent
of bouquets of red roses
assembled on my chest.
My sleeping wife was gone.
An indentation of her body,
was all that remained in bed.
I searched all the rooms
in our house without
ever opening a door—
and discovered I could
walk through the walls.
I found my grieving wife
sitting shiva with mirrors
covered in every room.
In the far-off distance,
I could hear a laudatory
eulogy that could not
possibly be for me.
Milton P. Ehrlich Ph.D. is an 88-year-old psychologist and a veteran of the Korean War. He has published poems in The Antigonish Review, London Grip, Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Literary Magazine, Wisconsin Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times.
