On Bustle Road

by Gilda Morina Syverson

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Picture by Ava Weintraub

January 13, 2012

Eighteen nieces and nephews 

show up at my front door, large 

brown carton in tow, 

four oldest hold each corner. 

They heard me, when I said 

they’ll take me out in a box. 

But I’m not going anywhere. 

I’m dying here. 

The one who lived with us 

during the building of this house 

speaks in a firm voice, “Aunt G, 

get in. We’re taking you to 

the nursing home.” I look 

the other way. I’ve made it clear, 

this is where I’m dying. 

In the back of the pack, 

my youngest sibling, nineteen 

years my junior, cups her hand 

on the ball of a cane, shakes 

her head, refuses to look 

me in the eye, mumbles, 

“Good luck getting her out.” 

I’ll be a bear, I swear. No one 

will move me from my den. 

The one child of eight my mother 

said would never leave home, 

and I’ve lumbered up and down 

the east coast, lived in upstate 

& western New York, Boston, 

St. Louis, the Carolinas, back north 

to Cape Cod, then south again 

before building three more houses. 

Ten homes in thirty years. 

Scrambling, sorting, dumping, 

phoning, scheduling, packing, 

arranging, organizing is enough 

to dig a deep dark cave, burrow 

in, hibernate like a grizzly 

in winter, hope I’ve completed 

every detail required to shift 

a life from one home to another 

for the last time. Have I made 

myself clear. I am dying here.