cyclones of russet leaves
doing devilish dances in her yard
while she read, sipped chamomile,
and listened to the cat’s warm hum by her feet,
the neighbor’s Harley on her street
the default ring tone
she never changed, interrupted her mid paragraph,
between the writer’s deft description of a noisy bar,
and an anonymous couple walking to the car
to find something they lost
long before that night
the words that came
when she answered became part
of her own novel, lines scribed in a book
she would carry with her forever,
words she read over and over
as she ran to the car,
“your husband is in the ER”
“your husband is in the ER”
“your husband…”
he had gone for cat food,
asparagus, and likely some beer,
or Chablis if he remembered they were having
chicken Milan that very night
and he did, because the bottle
was yet on the floor board
of his Honda Accord, after…
two officers met her
at the sliding ER door
and the eyes of one, puffy with compassion
required they say no more than her name
this also now written in her own book
since half of it was his
half, his
his parents arrived
at 2:56 AM the next day
having been entombed in a silver blue buzzing tube
two hours late from JFK--first class only meant more
mournful space around them
they could not fill
her own mother
handled all the arrangements, being a master at such
having buried her father, the last pilot downed
in that crazy Asian war, and putting her older brother
in the ground when white blood cancer
took him before he made it
to double digits
services, closed casket,
were on a thick Thursday,
delayed a day while they
waited for their priest to return
from his own mother’s wake
in some other world
all friends and family
gone by Saturday, leaving her to listen
for the cat’s hum (but he was hiding)
the neighbor’s roaring machine
and more ring tones, more sound
that would too become indelible lines
in her timeless tome, that began
on a windy Sunday