Christmas Lover

 

Rigid cold and white, a porcelain tub on four talons

Embraces her warm body as it languishes in misty

Bubbles whispering lyrics of tenderness in hot water

Streaming in a delicate dance on her pale pink toes.

 

Silent and alone beneath stars in a clear dark sky

Her memories keep her company

Recollections of three loving nights and days

Held in her heart now for safekeeping.

 

She can still feel the delicate trace of his fingertips

The soft aging skin of his body, passionate and burning,

Lips searching urgently beside the soft tunes on the radio

Their bodies stirring on cue, crying out in bliss.

 

Her tongue tonight, now sweetened only

By chilled Champagne in a Sippy cup.

Crystal flutes safe, high on a shelf,

His happy laughter brushes pain across her soul.

 

It was mere hours before that she watched him sail off

As it was the time before, and all the times before that

It feels like a hundred years ago,

Melancholy satiating her as a chocolate torte.

 

Their calendars on opposite ends of the planet

Will turn in the breeze a dozen spells

Before he returns to hold her again, for Christmas,

From the bed he shares with his wife.

                                                                                                                                                     KT/revised 1/16/16

2015-11-04 16.41.31

Jack’s Suit

Do you see him there? The little guy in the dark blue suit.

Carried into church by his Mama for his Auntie Karen’s wedding

Fall breezes quietly tickling his cheek

His bright speckled blue eyes missing nothing.

.

Katie’s got him right there in her lap of dreams

Her little boy, full of wonder, in church again

Sitting close, so sharp once again in that cute little suit

Here in the winter cold, at his Mama’s Grandma’s funeral mass.

.

A few months later, Katie’s gone too, much too soon

Gone with her smile that brought the sun up in the morning

Her laughter that rippled the waters

Her bright blue eyes that she shares with little Jack.

.

Little Jack is firmly in his Papa’s arms now

Sitting still and quiet on the dark and hard wooden pew

Wondering eyes topping his cleaned and pressed suit

Searching the sunbeams for his Mommy.

.

Katie’s off onto a new journey now

Taking with her the love of a million memories

Leaving behind a world of hurt full of love

Sprinkled with shattered pieces of hearts.

.

.

Written in loving memory of my wonderful grand-daughter, Katherine Patricia Green Broder. With gratitude, “Jack’s Suit” was recently published in the California Writers Club Literary Review, October 2015.

The Gift

I see her sitting there on a chair at her cool white Formica kitchen table in the heat of a summer day. 1980, Carson City, Nevada. Her blue skirt and sheer shirt hang loosely on her skin and bones. So thin – always so thin. My mom, sixty years old. In six years, she’d be gone.

For a long time now, I’ve carried the gift she gave to me. Not the watch, tiny diamonds walking around a silver oblong face. The time-keeper put on her wrist when dad was courting her.

A watch I like to wear on scattered days.

It’s not the blue sapphire and diamond ring given to her that she gave to me, that I gave to my daughter.

Total love and support with no judgment. A gift given, unsaid, unseen. Always there, always loving, when I stumbled.

That gift sprinkles on my own children, my grandchildren, and their children, with a handful of gratitude, cloaked in threads strummed along the years.

On a hot day this summer, ignoring pins and needles in a summer breeze just about stopped me in my tracks. Floating on an air mattress, bright yellow in a sparkling azure pool, my chest rising and falling. My breath catching.

Suddenly, clear as day, not heard in twenty-nine years, Mom’s voice shouting to me.

“Kathy, do what you’re told!”

Sliding off the float, a few short strokes, a quick step and the ‘whoosh’ from a small hand-held red and white inhaler. I felt that breath as sure as Mom was standing there beside me, breathing with me. Breathing for me.

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**This poem was formulated during a poetry workshop I attended today, facilitated by Gary Silva and sponsored by Napa Valley Writers. Thank you, Gary and NVW.

During the workshop, a choice of several prompts was presented for which we could write a short piece right then and there. I chose the following:

Write about a gift your family, or someone in it, gave you. It might be an actual gift – a baseball glove, a book, a necklace – or a more intangible one. Talk about how that gift was or could be transferred to another, passed on.

So, Dear Reader, a challenge. Do the same. What do you have to say? Let’s hear about your ‘gift’.