VARIOUSLY BORN

She ordered clothes – closets-full,

mounds of jewelry, and other adornments

to feel beautiful in her homebound dying,

for herself, for you.

I know little of this person you embellished

best with love, not money, though I do know

women in general, especially the middle-aged.

We fear losing our men, their gaze,

feel their helpless attraction to the

supple limbs and plump lips of those

younger and more spry than we,

with their wiles and preternatural grace.

We struggle with hair that turns to snow

jowls that bow to gravity, wrinkles that

tell us we have lived but will not, for long.

For one who will depart soon, and knows it,

there is nothing else but to accumulate

a small wealth, in large ways.

You finally have disposed of much,

but much remains, in drawers,

on shelves, in closets and nooks.

And then, one night, to the thrum

of six frenetic highway lanes,

you draped a fragile chain on my ankle,

one tiny heart dangling, a gold tear.

In that moment, a part of her was with me.

For two years you had mourned.

And then, that night, the two of us,

the three of us, were variously reborn.

Copyright Julianza Shavin 2008