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The Wife
Knees up
under pillows
book balanced on the massed
quilts and sheets
she reads, tea cooling in a blue and brown
mug, inclined against another fold
of bedding. When she reaches
for her pencil, the liquid leans
but does not spill.
Bifocals gangly on the table
a white plate, crumbs like leaf shadows
in the sunlight on the floor
she moves the tea mug there, and pulls
up her notebook, flexible and empty
now for many months.
The pencil presses back against
laundry and gardening cracks
in her thumb. She squints
and bends forward with her gray bangs
now the sun has slipped to the foot
of the big bed, where a grey cat mocks
sleep, ears alert.
It is so much like a sketch, or song
but no one in the room describes
her page angled to catch
the light. No one sees small
adjustments of paper and hand,
pillow and knee. From other rooms
she hears a radio, a bathroom drawer
thud, then another.
They know where to find her
should it be necessary, but
they do not come. The wife
reaches for her glasses, her
empty plate, hesitates
over the
cold cup
looks up.
Jennifer
Swanton Brown
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