Saturday, February 28, 2009

Sunday Scribblings: Lost

This week's theme at Sunday Scribblings: lost. Here's my take on the prompt.

The Lost One

comes back to her
in the month of his thirty-eighth
birthday, sometime in April
when the tiny white crosses
of the dogwoods had glowed
ghost-like at dusk
and she had felt him coming

too early for more
than a minute's worth
of breath and a sprinkling
of holy water, his name. Gasp
of the nun, sign of the cross.
Emptyhanded

she had returned to her kitchen,
rubbed the windows clean of streaks
to better watch her three boys outside
who never thought to ask
where
or why
or even to notice the swell of her belly
gone back to ribs

and now he would be years older
than she was then, a sweet balding man
who, whistling, comes
through the front door with a kiss
on the cheek and a single daffodil.

—Sarah Cummins Small, copyright 2009

2 comments:

Cindy-Still His Girl said...

Do you have any idea how talented you are? I read that three times because I loved it so much.

Have you ever been published?

p.s. Just read a sweet book you might like... The Liberation of Gabriel Jones. We're doing a "book club" on it with Shelby and other 4th graders and their parents.

j said...

Oh.

I have to agree with Cindy-Still His Girl: do you have any idea how talented you are? Such simple language with the breaks in all the right places. And I'm teary, too.