Dorian Kotsiopolous

When the Nursing Home Wants to Know How We Are and What We Should Do With His Belongings

I think

how he came to this country all by himself from Louvri, a tiny village 
	        in Greece, with few belongings and 
how he left with few belongings, but in between 
how he cradled the first warm tomato from his garden each year and saved it for us,
how he’d tie a cut onion to his leg with a rag rather than get a new knee
	        because he hated copayments, but loved scratch tickets,
how he longed to win big and spent too much and lost too much, but
how he told me once that he’d hit the lottery with me, I was worth a million dollars
                to him, and I knew that was a fortune to a man who grew up 
                in a two-room house without running water, and I think 
how he learned to install plumbing and build houses for our smiling faces 
                in the photos pinned to the wall of his room at the nursing home, 
                and how even when he yelled we knew how he longed for us and
                how he was one of us and 

how he belonged to us.