The Old Woman's Estate

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One shady afternoon not long after she'd passed,
The caretaker tidied up the careless things
That laid about the dusty house.
He felt bereft and curiously breathless, embalmed almost,
In the dry deathless residue that curious spinster sculptress left.

Nothing she'd left behind was his, or could be,
Except his vagrant thoughts,
As he recalled beneath her favorite white oak tree
How like a leaf she'd shake beneath the covers on stormy nights.

Behind the house, he stepped into
The artist's still over-crowded studio—
Inactive now, but still the source of all the dust—and thought,
"Love has a thousand foolish faces in the aftermath of life.
Her life is gone now, yet only life is left.

Of her, there is only her young/old gaze staring out
(From years of photographs, I mean)
Above that sweet and poisoned mouth
That would so seldom laugh—
The stern and somber specter of my soft and secret wife."

current draft: 02/02/07
©2003 Ronald C. Southern

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