Incomplete Joy 

by Nancy K. Jentsch

 
I couldn’t know it would be 
the last phone call—cheerful, 
positive (thank goodness), mention 
of next week’s Thanksgiving plans, 
a new sweater on your needles. 
A month later I realized 
you’d shopped early for Christmas, 
bargained with delayed delight 
at giving your gifts. But it was 1981 
and every bit of joy had faded  
with fall’s waning. I remember 
the presents—the last things 
you’d chosen for me. There was 
a blouse—always an awkward fit 
that still clutters my closet. And 
a thesaurus, though you couldn’t 
know I’d once fledge as a poet. 
Years on, its thumb tabs, worn 
with searching, have not yet 
yielded a synonym for you. 


* * * * *

Nancy K. Jentsch’s chapbook Authorized Visitors and the collaborative ekphrastic chapbook Frame and Mount the Sky, in which her poetry appears, were published in 2017. Her collection Between the Rows debuted in 2022. Since she began to write in 2008, her work has appeared in journals such as Amethyst Review, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Tiferet Journal, and Zingara Poetry Review. In 2020, she received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Retired after 37 years of teaching, she finds a bounty of inspiration in her family and her rural home. More information is available on her website: https://jentsch8.wixsite.com/my-site.