Widow–dVerse Poetics

Photo: imgkid.com

The chill in the room seeps into her bones,
while sweet-pungent scent of chamomile and honey
offers little comfort.
In the corner, a thrift-store lamps sits on an antique table,
its warm low light flickers like a candle flame.
The old woman rocks back and forth,
creaking on the hardwood floor.
She fingers the fringe of her gray afghan,
untangles skeins of troubled thoughts,
sips 2 AM loneliness.

The tea-cup, empty now, bids her back to bed
where she dreads the sagging mattress on the other side
that still holds his scent.

Written and linked to dVerse Poetics where the prompt is to write a poem using 2 AM.

is there not a correlation between the fragile and the beautiful?

Photo: Family Memory Book–V. Slotto

when i hear the sound of pouring tea
i remember her—
the beauty of a love well-lived
cached ‘neath cascades of wrinkle lines
and scars.

i think of loss and hope
held close within the pages
of a musty mem’ry book,

of yellowed linen
edged with lace
that smells of lavender

of all that might have been
if not for war.

Posted for dVerse Poetics where we are asked to write of beauty beyond the physical.