June 2023
Bio Note: I am a searcher, a dreamer, a widow, a psychotherapist in private practice, and poetry mentor who was awarded The Contemporary American Poetry Prize by Chicago Poetry. I have written six collections of poetry including Through My Window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist and edited two poetry anthologies, Poems From 84th Street and Mentor's Bouquet. I will have the pleasure of leading a poetry workshop at The International Women's Writing Guild's Annual Summer Conference July 20-24, 2023 in Philadelphia at Chestnut Hill College. www.iwwg.org/conf23
My Husband Says, "You Will Be Alright."
Sunlight on the burning bush
outside our bedroom window
over fifty years ago told me
about the ache of endings.
Now each day savored
is a singular world.
I look at him as I did
when we were circling, deciding.
I listen each morning for his breath,
look for the rise and fall of his chest,
am grateful I can scramble eggs,
make blueberry pancakes and coffee.
Our moments of laughter
undress me.
I am naked again
and want to merge with him,
take the whole of him
into me and save him,
the deep movie star voice,
the way he thanks me
for everything,
the way he loves me,
says I am beautiful and strong,
catches my eye, laughs when I do.
My life is measured
not in coffee spoons,
but in meal making:
pasta with shrimp and asparagus,
omelets oozing gouda,
tomatoes from our vines,
roasted chicken
with Michigan cherries and wild rice.
It's come to this again.
I offer him food like I did my breast to our babies.
I wash his body, brush his hair, apply lotion,
cover him with the quilt his mother made,
and he says in that voice
I love, "Everything will be alright.
You are strong,
but I don't want to leave you."
The burning bush is blazing again.
It will be winter soon.
Snow will cover the earth.
And he says it will be alright
without him.
I Can't Tell You
Because the May moon is blood red.
Because our carpet still carries pink stains
from the morphine I spilled that last night.
Because yellow daffodils still trumpet in April.
Because I put your death certificate
and unopened sympathy cards in a box.
Because the lilacs remember our first house.
Because I placed that box in your closet
and inhaled the scent of your clothing.
Because the robins returned to nest in our eaves.
Because your ashes are on my shelf
next to our picture in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Because I still wake
and hear you call for me at night.
Because my body remembers you.
I can’t tell you I had dinner with another man.
I can’t tell you he helped me laugh again.
I can’t tell you I made your favorite apple tart.
I can’t tell you he sat in your chair at our table.
I can’t tell you
my body remembers you both.
©2023 Linda Leedy Schneider
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL