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