Image credit: Todd Laffler-photo.net

It was your idea to draw up legal Wills, wretched documents
These ideas of what goes to whom and why and when
First, for our mother and given her illness, it seemed right
She was already in a nether world, not knowing you nor me
But being a girl as in her youth, innocent, delicate, with a
Smile that washed away all the pain we knew was peeling her
Away from this tentative foothold in the present, knowing
Only days of long ago in a time before when pain did not exist
And the loss of her beauty had not begun and now she, too, was
Slipping away

Then came your notion, a trickery, a deceit, a foul ball
In the game of softball I had watched you play as a boy
When you rounded the bases and slid into home
So sure, I had said, draw up the papers for you and me
Sign here, here, and here, you said with casual cunning
I would be Trustee for your girls, the ones you lived for
And you would be Trustee for my kids, trust being the word
Of note since you were the only one to whom I gave mine
Through all the years of laughter, heartaches confided, and bonds
Sealed forever

I tucked away copies in a drawer of my oak desk, once owned by
A famous man and now, a treasured antique that held only one
Document of legal importance, signed by you, by me, and hidden
Then you boarded the plane to Atlanta and I waved as I always did,
Though too small for you to see once lifted from the runway into
Clouds like the ones we deciphered as children and had seen silly
Pictures or paintings from God’s hands that had designed these images
For us to gaze upon when the world seemed solemn and without Grace
Or comfort to children who lived in fear moment to moment in secrecy
Just us

But one evening, some months later, and after our mother had sailed
I was having dinner at the Rusty Nail, that quaint little place where we
Had dined and had spoken of ordinary things in extraordinary ways,
From the table in the back where the lights were more dim but your smile
Warming in the knowing that you were my only constant, the one who knew
All that was unknowable to anyone but us, and in unconditional love we had
Spoken of the past, of survival, of today, of tomorrows, of plans, of future…
My daughter entered with a flushed face saying come home now, Mum
And from her visage, I knew. I knew. You had an unwritten codicil in my desk
I, Trustee

© 2012, Cher Duncombe. All rights reserved.

Cher Duncombe (27 Posts)

Conveying emotions through word images is something I have long loved. I describe it as word-painting, sometimes Impressionistic like Monet and sometimes bold and obtuse like Picasso.