The Widow

Not but six months ago her age you could not tell

for she wore her inner youth like his overdrawn coat,

placed upon her bare shoulders in the chill of a New York winter.

And I never once questioned her “forgetfulness.”

Her blond hairs intertwined with the gray,

like her fine, wrinkled hands bundled around his arm.

Even in the evening snow it shined a soothing gold.

Her laughter, it seemed, attended his every word,

so warm and pleasing; were it to echo

days would pass in its decrescendo.

Inevitably, the start of our acquaintance.

Her rosy red cheeks the same color of his lips

after kissing hers, accompanied with a smile

that danced around his thoughts the same as their first.

Oh, how I long to see that same smile again.

Always the same entrance, the same bench

from which I sat across.

Always the same walks, the same adoration,

the warmth of which I'd covet.

But now, though not the same as it ever was,

I sit across from her still.

She reads from his journals

and sometimes speaks his name.

Her blonds unveil more grays

as if gold had lost its luster.

Yet rosy still her cheeks.

Rosy still her lips

now kissing his soft white pages.

The cane she once detested all those years

now bears her weight and rests at her side.

His coat laid over it as if to assume his presence and

though she smiles, she seldom laughs,

for it would simply echo weeping.

Always the same entrance, the same bench

from which I sit across.

Always the same walks, the same adoration.

And I still envy.