Embers
Finished constructing another meal, she hands her husband
a corrugated lunch pail and thermos as he returns dutifully
to work.
With a goodbye kiss, the opened door announces today's
weather.
Morning chores accomplished; she sits for intermission.
Window-filtered rays of sunrise cast a halo on her worn-out,
wiry hair.
She rests her elbow on the sinewy woodgrain of the old cherry
table
oozing memories, revealing stains, and underneath, forgotten
bubblegum
from three generations of family sprouting into the next.
Auburn highlights whisper of her youth.
The leathered cracks that score her lip-line tell of bittersweet
realities,
wind, and the sorrow she’s weathered in the high desert
with mosaic Joshua Trees that seem to wave as tumbleweeds roll
by.
Between rising ribbons in a spectral of steam,
she peers over her white, porcelain coffee cup,
angles her head sidelong and shakes a cancer-stick loose.
Then she picks up her silver lighter and spins a flame with
the snap of a finger.
Takes one, lengthy drag from her long, slender Pall Mall,
sets it in the ashtray
among crinkled, lipstick-stained cigarette butts to be
forgotten
She seizes the newspaper to dissect it
and folds the page that remains to her proclivity.
She turns to scan a cluttered counter for a #2 pencil.
Her tool of choice retrieved,
she flicks its eraser beads into the bed of cigarette butts
and checks to ensure the graphite is sharpened to a fine
point.
Concentration fierce on her brow until that a-ha moment
is meticulously scribbled onto her crossword puzzle
while her cigarette lingers, smoldering relentlessly
into a train of ashes held together and bent as if sculpted
in Play-dough.
Reminders of the war, misplaced possibilities, and unknown
consequences
no longer haze her consciousness, not now, anyway.
Peeking over the rim of her glasses, the champion looks up,
smiles,
and cheerfully says, “Good morning, Honey Girl.”
Smoke still climbing from the heavy, leaded glass ashtray
the embers advance while the nicotine cloud lingers
tenaciously.
Eventually, the fire gives up and succumbs, as did she.
Her blaze of aspirations, not designed to be wasted as they
were.
~Deb
#poetry #grandmother #Granny #FamilyLove #BettyLeach
