When My Friend Left a Marriage

She relied on cinematic memory and pruning shears

to fit twenty years into boxes

and sort out what is

and what is not needed

boxes of soft-backed books with loosened glue spines,

four Chinese bowls from Hong Kong,

three non-immersable electric appliances

She takes eighteen photographs

in silver toned frames

In one a birch tree strains

to stand. separate from underbrush

and unending hedges.

" I felt that way," she tells me as I

pack the Chinese bowls

The first day in her new house

I help her hang a photo of two Bennington rockers

next to a sampler she copied

from one done two hundred years ago

The first Sunday she invites friends for brunch

I bring damson jelly, someone brings scones

Near the window a plant in an earthenware pot

gathers in the sun

New leaves unwrap

Linda Watskin

Day 30 Poetic Asides