A Decade Earlier by Kathleen Vibbert

Weathered Blue by Pat Jones
                                                                                                                                                           

                                   A Decade Earlier

                                   Her husband said that after he died
                                   she’d reuse the Reynolds Wrap,
                                   talk to herself by the belly of oak

                                   finish his afghan in beet-root color.
                                   She laughs, and it decomposes the moment it hits the air. She imagines

                                   him, a decade earlier, standing near
                                   the creosole bush, leaving only enough
                                   breath for peripheral shadow

                                   blue-checked scarf hiked over one ear.
                                   With the passing
                                   of time, his touch
                                   has become more than something
                                   that once got in the way.

                                   It finds her again the way breezes do.
                                   Crumbles like rust from an old tool
                                   inside her hand.

                                  ___________________
                                  Kathleen Vibbert

  

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