The desire to make the rest of these words rhyme
Is immense!
Alas, I cannot do it.
All I can do is read Frost’s
iambic pentameter and wonder
just what has become of Lola C. Edwards?
It’s her tome that I’ve purchased for two bits
at this decrepit, yet beloved thrift shop.

The book became hers, according to her inscription,
in the year 1970.
Now, it belongs to me in 2014.
I bought it because it’s The Complete Poems of Robert Frost;
the same that resides in my father’s library
and was greedily scanned by my hungry eyes and inspired mind.
But, what happened to Lola, some years ago?
Was it the cancer? Did it consume her bones?
Was she surrounded by loved ones?
Was she all alone?
What else but death could force her to relinquish such a text?
Surely, she couldn’t have done so willingly.
Her estate has been sold.
Her knick-knacks dusted and boxed for their final voyage to The DAV.
Turned over to uncaring brutes that couldn’t care less about
her beloved crystal cake plate, now shattered, or the book
that I hold in my hand today.
Lola C Edwards shares her life with me.
Every time I open this compendium,
I shall celebrate her, this beloved stranger!
Because, we are alike, she and I
in that we have chosen the road less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.
*
-J. Claywell
©P&ZPublications; 2014