(for Jill)
Something has left her and it’s bigger than her grief,
More hurting than his wardrobe of stale clothes.
The bathroom tap, she feels, requires fixing,
Its dripping seems like weeping in her mind.
She drives the car he cared for like a mistress,
To classes where she learns to train her thoughts
In poems that, it seems, don’t need to rhyme;
She always wears, for him, some thing that’s black.
The children come with problems and for loans
And question why she’s always out so much.
Their comments always scorch her flights of freedom,
She microwaves a meal that’s meant for one.
It’s awkward with her friends, they’re still in couples,
Their small talk bandages what’s left unsaid.
Some days are heavy, as if she’s got the flu,
The silence snares her mind: what can she do?
She turns the T.V. on and turns it off,
Picks up the mobile phone but does not talk.
Her husband stares from photos placed on walls
That he once cursed with one more lick of paint.
He seems too much alive with careful smiles,
Holding her hand as if he is in love.
She opens curtains on a sudden sun
And stares down on a lawn long overgrown.
Peter Thabit Jones © 2016
Published in SELECTED POEMS (Bilingual: English/Romanian), 2016