To an old tune
There are days when she awakens with a lump in her throat, gaping vulnerable, sad for no reason. Great wells rise and puddle along the rim until stray mundane images, first draft haiku, yank tears.
And all through the morning everything she battles with hangs on her like a wet winter overcoat, her entire life’s sadness flooding through.
Trying to not let on that she’s an open wound, resigned to being moved, overwhelmed, by the prosaic… the encroaching chill on daybreak air, a passionate voice on the radio, sunlight shafts through the trees, fat flakes of snow pinwheel spinning toward her, fingertip trails over a sleeping back, a mother’s harsh words, clarinet sorrow, guileless sentiment... and she bites her tongue not to weep.
Cured only by an old joke that still makes her laugh uncontrollably.
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