Ashtray

Inspired by a poem published in my Alma Mater's magazine.

Photo by Daniele Fotia on Unsplash

Misery looks like my mother 
in the Harbor Hospital waiting room on a Tuesday night after work, 
like the widened eyes of my fourteen-year-old cat 
watching four towering strangers 
carry my father out on a stretcher. 
It looks like Chinese food, 
spilt and forgotten on the floor,
rice and shrimp smashed by black boots …