Love, Differently

by Meg Freer

I.
She still hears her deceased husband
in her dreams. He always tells her to smile.

II.
She sleeps in the sun in her car,
around the corner from her home where
testosterone erupts each morning in the kitchen.

III.
She leaves her house and knows
the eyes watching out the window only want
to observe the alignment of the car wheels
or the pattern of the hubcaps as they spin.
He won’t miss her while she’s gone.

IV.
A child, spanked for pulling the dog’s tail.
Denied candy at home, he hoards
sugar packets pilfered from cafés,
hopes he remembers to empty his pockets
before adding his pants to the laundry hamper.

V.
An absent parent looks at the sky
through telescopes all night.
The same galaxies confound us all.


* * * * *

"Love, Differently" is an alternate version of North Grenville Poetry Contest winner—Experience Art Fest, June 2022, https://www.experienceartfest.com/showcase

Meg Freer grew up in Montana and lives in Ontario, where she is a mother, writer and piano teacher. Writing poetry helps her draw unexpected meaning from the beauty and strangeness of both humans and the natural world. She has co-authored a chapbook, Serve the Sorrowing World with Joy (Woodpecker Lane Press, 2020) and published two additional chapbooks. Her photos, poetry and prose have been published in journals such as Burningword Literary Journal, Sunlight Press, Eastern Iowa Review, and Sequestrum.