Doris Watts
The Reconciliation
And so, my love, today I'm cleaning, madly
sorting out that closet full of clothes
that I have found no longer fit and all those
shelves of costly shoes (once prized) now sadly
out of style and (yes, always were) too small.
And as for you, my dear, you can't insist
you'll keep that shirt you wore at twenty-six
and guard those running shoes with worn-out soles.
Well, love, old things are done. It's over with.
All's on the curb. We can't retrieve the loss.
The past (once perfect fit) has passed. No stitch
can mend those rips or darn those holey socks.
Garage sale apologist, yard sale lover,
I'll sell it cheap and quick, and we'll start over
Election
Isabella Richards, 1853-1928
Staunch Presbyterian, one not given
to imagination but secure in
her religion and her chance at heaven,
she caught a cold, and decided, since she'd seen
all the Scotch aunts and cousins, she'd turn in
her ticket (Titanic passage), sailing
early. And when, once home, she'd settled in
and taken up her knitting there again,
she told her friends and children how she'd seen
an iceberg in the sparkling water.
Did she ever wonder who it was that got her
ticket? She never said. And no one asked her.
Not all are saved. There's those God passes by.
No one knows who. No one knows why.
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