This poem came from a call out from the Vancouver Island Regional Library for poetry during the Covid-19 isolation period. Mom was in an Alzheimer's care home and I was locked outside. So I visited her through the window of her room.
I challenged myself to write a poem which was way out of my comfort zone. Barriers was published in the poetry anthology Alone But Not Alone: Poetry in Isolation in 2020, my first publication.

Barriers   
I squint through the reflective glass, 
and wish things were different. 
My shaded eyes make out a single bed covered with stuffed animals. 
A door opens and two figures emerge. 
My focus locks on the frail tiny one. 
She is dwarfed by her companion. 
He coaxes her forward.   

I press my hand to the cold pane in greeting. Recognition replaces her beige world. 
A brilliant smile transforms her passive features. 
Our hands sandwich the barrier that separates us. 
My longing recedes. 
The lawn chair protests as I sit. 
The care aid pulls her chair toward 
the screened four-inch opening in the window.   

I speak loudly from behind 
my tightly woven mask: 
“Hi Mom.” 
My words are smothered beneath the 
urgent tires on the asphalt behind me. 
The warm breeze cools in the shade of the facility, raising goose bumps on my bare arms.   

“You look cold.” 
Her finger points the way to the main entrance. 
She is my mother again: 
“You should come in.” 
I rest my forehead on the window frame. 
“I can’t Mom, I don’t want to risk making you sick.” 
I explain once again about the virus. 
She nods as understanding settles, 
then evaporates. 
The finger is more insistent: “
You should come in, you look cold.” 
“I wish I could Mom. I really do.”