'Green Chair and Flamingo' -- by Sophie Edell, Quebec 

The Empty Other Chair

Once there ran a bonding thread
attaching soul to soul
as close as each could ever be
by blood, by bone they’d grow.

Then in the jaws of time was crushed 
their lifeline one to one,
a difference insurmountable
in what each must have done.

What held itself hand-in-hand
through years of change each day,
fragilely amidst the odds
fell slip by slip away —

 And with familiar kind goodbye
the bond no longer there,
this strange and hollow severance
now the empty other chair.

3/11/24 by djl