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