by Sarah White
I know she’s coming when I hear the sounds—
something between a humming and a mewing
as if a hungry kitten
had strayed into the building.
Leaning lightly on her cane, she taps her way
around the lobby. Afraid of wind,
she wears a scarf and hat too heavy for the summer.
With taps and cries, she signals
other widows in the building—
telling us
her husband died last year,
her younger daughter the year before,
from cancer, and the other daughter’s coming later
to take her walking in the winds of summer.
Author of Cleopatra Haunts the Hudson (Spuyten Duyvil, 2007) and Alice Ages and Ages (BlazeVox, 2010), Sarah White has given up writing poetry hundreds of times.