Alice's Driveway

outside the house, her hair
white as      drifting ashes
     remember the blizzard?
     she was folded   with last summer's
     knitting: hands busy in fresh thread.
her lips - those receding plum orchards,
tucked into long pale wrinkles
     the canyon of her word
     where fat lazy tongue   beats
     lost French lessons into
     friendly conversation.
eyes concealed - London gray
behind thick clear shadows
    (everything is prescription)
those lifeless windows   almost a barricade
still drawing the Sunday print near.

she shakes on, "we were alive,"
back then. . .
hands flash a golden halo:
     her soldier will return.
     the glitter rakes my cold thought
     romance is still alive - 
somewhere.  painted house robe ushers
past the screen door,  until her
eighty-nine years leave me
behind a restless golden retriever;
surrender to morning walk.


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© October, 1997
Denise Angela Celeste.