with the shock of hospice behind her
and her ashes scattered on her cherished Pacific.
She’s flipped the hourglass and stopped it at 29,
when her hair was still chestnut and waving
to her waist. And because it’s November and nighttime
she’s wearing one of those vintage wool coats,
wide lapels, no buttons or belt, a blue nearly gray
in the foggy noir light of the streetlamps.
It’s cold enough she has to hold it tight
against her body. Too cold for the emerald
silk teddy, or her long tanned legs in b-ball shorts,
ready for some serious one-on-one. I’m dying
to stop my steep climb home, turn around and ask her
if she’s really here, but Orpheus is in my ear,
warning me not to make that old mistake.
It’s about trust, I think. Keep moving
through the gloom of a spinned myth:
let those you’ve loved come back
when they’re ready, when you’re ready,
as if no one were lost to begin with.
Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Centolella. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 21, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
