Is it all right to feel
this good?
I have touched my essence
and recognized the self
I was
before my love
was wrenched from me.
My friend-– widowed seven years- –
psychotherapist twice that
tells me I look lighter.
Two evening I have cried for others’’ losses
along with mine.
If I am lighter
it is tears lighter.
Only days lighter
where I can sit once more at table
like we used to do –
together.
Ten weeks it took till I could do that alone.
If I am lighter
it is because
I choose to move
instead of sleep exhausted
in the early evening
then rise at three
not ready for living.
If I am lighter
it is tears lighter.
I remember a student
from special ed
special she was to me.
She loved the “Lion King.”
I’d heard a few of its lines
and judged them for children.
But this student
new to the teens
spoke to my aching
as my husband’s life
slowly ebbed away.
“The Lion King,” she said,
tossing her own thick mane of carrot hair,
“The movie’s about that if somebody
you love dies
it doesn’t
destroy you.”
DAYS OF TOGETHER
LIKE FALLEN SNOW
MAYBE SHIRTS ARE EASIER
When Bobby and Bobbie Made Music Together
UNPUBLISHED