Lindsay Lewis

English/ ESL consultant: Word worker, writer, teacher, mentor and poet. Author of This Won’t Hurt a Bit! on writing clear content.

Beating the Odds.

Posted by on Feb 3, 2020

Beating the Odds                                                                               by Lindsay Lewis

 

He thought they had covered eventualities

the small assurances of life

years of counting carbs and slathering sunscreem

petunias, seeding in spring

He thought he knew the texture of his life

wife at his fingertips

filling cups with coffee: Black, rich, dark.

He always dealt in answers, measured happiness with

yardstick precision

Now he shuffles questions

on unfamiliar ground: This why is not his

At night only the tick tick of clock arms

paddling nowhere

the weight of her absence pressing his body

deeper into the sheets

His body, a white flower in a book

someone had forgotten to open.

 

I wrote this poem as a tribute to a friend’s sister who died very young,in her forties,  leaving a daughter and husband behind. Grief is a slippery, bottomless pit.

 

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