After Breakfast 

I slept well last night,

only waking up when the phone rang and her familiar voice brought me back to reality – “did I wake you up?”

 (I miss her, my home and my kids….) 

I keep the calendar tucked under my pillow. 

After Breakfast I sat out back on the porch studying the fence along the side yard.

(All those broken slats!)

I remember when the fence was new,

then I was a child and he had red hair and a booming voice.

He came out to pass the time with me and he complained about the broken slats and how he can’t remember who to call to have them fixed. 

Then he sits in his black chair,

white hair contrasted against it,

a kind of throne,

an homage to his sense of self that is always close.

The growing gap between them and now,

but in the chair that gap is not as wide,

it is closer, 

the way the water sometimes seems to the far horizon.

Later,

I walked around town for a while down by the river,

summer time in full bloom,

tired and missing home,

I thought of jumping into the river and letting it take me home. 

T.S. Deary