The woman grew old here
a lifetime at this kitchen window
alone over a day's worth of dishes
her half bottle of Southern Comfort
her Lucky boring into the edge of the counter
and below her spot burned ovals
in the archaic flooring
that won't be SOS'ed away.
Along the mop boards I discover a gray hair.
Not our middle-aged carpenter's, I think,
but the dog's, buried among the perennials,
or the husband's or hers.
Waiting at the sink
pretending a family asleep
upstairs as she scoured
or absently looked down the alley
for the sons across town
or the daughter with her eyes,
or recalled the breath of her lover
as she stood in her husband's galoshes
kept for sleet and scrubbing floors.
The town remembers
the ex-shoe factory foreman
chewed up by his outboard
and for ten years his wife
staggered through nights alone
until she couldn't find her way home
knocked on neighbors' doors till she found one
not moved, divorced, or dead
who'd take her in, call her son
who came home to the lawn
gone to seed under the pines
crab apples dried on their branches
to no jellied end.
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