The Chairs
Reilly Smith
December 11, 2022
Like him, Paw-Paw’s chair was an institution,
a navy blue lazy boy—his dutiful second wife.
When he reclined, the springs nagged and the base shrieked.
That chair didn't die; it retired just after him.
His next chair was handed down from Grammy’s younger sister;
it held his 3X butt with ease and absorbed the too-loud TV.
That chair ate two hearing aids and eight batteries.
After his hip replacement, the family invested in the last hurrah:
a hospital-grade throne, remote included.
What with renal failure, he ruined that chair.
Sometimes, when you shift it just right, you can smell
the ammonia-scented humiliation of a man's last stand.
Reilly Smith is a novice poet, a mother, and a graduate student of English at Lamar University.
