We’ve lived
side by side
for years.
We’ve shared
recipes,
movies,
eggs.
Our kids
have baked cookies
and
walked to school
and
had first day of school photos
and
last day of school breakfasts.
We’ve taught
each other’s kids at church.
We’ve sat
in council meetings
together
as auxiliary presidents.
We’ve been
visiting teaching companions.
We’ve carpooled
and
attended the same
concerts
and
graduations
and
ridden to promenades
and
traded weeks
for lunch bunch.
And
now we’re both losing
our husbands.
Both are dying:
–hers, physically,
and mine, spiritually.
Together we weep
As she faces
the loss of her husband
And I face
the loss of mine.
Two men,
friends,
now disabled.
One by chance,
the other by choice.
I worry about
wearing out my welcome,
but wonder if maybe
our mutual sharing
is helpful.
She can vent to me
about exactly
what’s going on,
maybe in some way
she doesn’t talk
to anyone else.
And
we weep
together
and hold on
together.
There are times when I/
meet tempting, fiery women/
who are just teases.
After waiting hours /
for my delayed flight, I think/
Reykjavik sounds good.
She sat in the middle-of-a-cornfield,
Up-on-the-Hill ,
Blues bar,
listening,
slow dancing,
sharing that loneliness drink,
(So much better
than drinking alone.)
One wondered how she,
blonde beauty,
could ever be left
weekend alone;
how her kind, caring
intelligence
and deep soul
would not draw someone
smart enough
to be kind and caring,
deeply,
always.
When he learned how she was,
he asked,
because she shouldn’t be
alone
as she was,
and he knew he
could change that
and her.
Because when she says she’s “sort of seeing someone”,
she’s admitting that she’s also kind of not.
My German class
crush.
When I finally dared,
for the first time ever,
to ask her out,
heart in throat,
palms sweating,
stomach butterflying,
she said
she was
“too busy”.
Funny how some things
don’t change.
Maybe
it’s a brunette thing.