My four walls wrapped around me
that hot summer of your defection.
Silence so loud it almost drowned out my despair.

I opened the windows wide and the white cotton curtains swayed in the slight breeze;
the roar of bees outside on the dandelions in the unmown yard was deafening in the hush.
The roses bloomed brightly – they did not know I was in grief, in rage?

Around my chair in the corner I piled books and got lost,
not reading words but living inside stories, images of love lost, of starting over….of home.

Cars hummed on the street outside; kids on skateboards clacked by shouting to each other but inside I went to Mexico, to Italy, to Ireland and England, to China and to India. I cooked with Julia Child, hunted houses with Francis Mayes, and visited the exotic Marigold hotel.

And every time I surfaced you were less distinct, your edges less sharp and painful.

 

[unfinished]