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Poem

The Visit

Dimly lit room with flowered wallpaper, 
bridal chamber for a couple, 1920.
In her noontime daydream she could see back then.

Coal dust between her fingers,
a strong back from lifting buckets,
waiting for the annual Christmas visit.
“My husband’s coming to town, on the 4 o’clock train.''
She told all her girlfriends in the Excelsior Club.

Welcoming room with scented linens and stern religious figures
New curtains with matching bedspreads
Smelling strong of Estee Lauder.
Grandmother
Friend
Mother-in-law
Church woman
Daughter
Caregiver
Woman in love with one wish
This night of the year, with her husband, this Christmas Eve, and then
he will be gone.
Back to the woman he lived with.
Time must stand still and be a welcome visitor tonight
Time must go back and bring a 20’s memory
to a 60’s room
while somewhere smelling of camphor and wintergreen
an invalid mother,
rocks and prays
sits and sighs.
Tomorrow morning
oyster fritters, grits and fried eggs
all for him to be gone
she would face
her coal bins and her ointments
a sick mother and another year 
her beautiful bridal chamber, ashes of roses wallpaper weeping
as she picks up the phone to call a girlfriend.

12/22/17

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