After the illness struck,
those who lived near enough
gathered to bury the child.
The church doors sighed open;
the neighbors slipped
into the marbled blue night,
all but one, who stayed kneeling
till dawn, then appeared with the sun
at the young couple’s home to assist
with the cooking and tending.
While they dined in silence
she piled plates and scrubbed pots
and mended socks. And she stayed on
through the patient adobe decades,
while the sun paled her blankets
and yarn hunched in baskets. A letter
with greening ink lay unread,
smooth in a mute box she kept
at her bedside. Now sun pries
at recesses. Doors shift. Light seeps in.
The lone guest, no longer guest,
works in the bleary light, threading
her faded strands into the form
of a midnight sunrise.
Photo by Antoine J. on Unsplash
