The Widow’s Coat – remembering my grandmother
by Marcel Aime Duclos

Folded,
now free of early November snow,
a black, woolen, winter coat rests
upon a chair in the corner–
lonely in the tenement kitchen
after the last Sunday walk to the neighborhood church.

Resting on the body-printed marital bed,
the widow vows a last adventure,
each word floating on a singular breath–
to join her husband and infant children
in the beyond.

She refuses entreaties to the contrary.
Rejects pleas, prayers to turn away
from her ice-flow plan. She welcomes
well-earned rest for herself        and
for her well-worn old-country coat–
a rest into which she closes her eyes
ten days later, the coat unmoved.



 

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