After reading Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin, I reflected on being a family member of someone with a differently wired brain. This poem is a personal response to a different issue with brain-wiring that has touched my life.

Once I started a little poem,
“Keys, wallet, watch.
One, Two Three.
Our dear Steve
Has OCD.”
It wasn’t really very nice–
I knew it had a touch of playground taunt.
Maybe more than a touch.
I felt sorry.
I knew compulsions were real.
And the obsessions painful.
Yet, at certain times,
and over time,
some of the most difficult things
have given way to such endearing things.
For example, scooping ice cream so that
there are no dips in the top.
The ice cream remains pristinely flat.
Jello in a round bowl is eaten precisely
as jello pie.
Perfect triangles.
9×13 casseroles are evened out in rows.
No partial rows.
Our shoveled paths of snow are straight and neat.
Exemplary.

I imagine how hard it is to have a wife who rarely does anything the same way twice.

Sometimes when I park the car, I get an “A.”

I hope it helps.