Widow

by Emalisa Rose


Through latter years, she’d only drive
down the block, mostly the side roads
never past 5, since her eyesight declined
and only for milk and the Marlboros, the
treats for the kitties that came to befriend her,
then back to the room where she'd sit still for hours
crocheting and watching those housewives shows
the occasional morning news or Yankee game and
rarely a mop or a broom would touch down on the floors.

"Who's coming here anyhow," Jane laughed, now
estranged from her sister, whom she'd never let see
how she'd aged without grace, stooped over, arthritic
gray tattered hair, rarely a comb woven through it.

Jane puts up the tree, most of the plasticized branches
all bent, an ensemble of half broken ornaments that
she wouldn’t throw out. She puts on the yule log
that pipes in the songs she would dance to, in the arms
of the man, who she once had called “husband”
for 45 years.


* * * * *

When not writing, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and birding. She walks with a group on Sundays through the neighborhood trails spotting some amazing winged ones. She lives near a beach town, which provides much of the inspiration for her work. Some of her poems have appeared in Writing in a Woman's Voice, Spillwords, MadSwirl and other wonderful places.