Second Wife
by Eve Triem - from New as a Wave: A Retrospective: 1937-1983
Slowly he accepts ice cream...
between the half-teaspoons
I feed him
he talks of Daisy,
grammar school idol;
repeats the story
of his first wife Minna.
He has used up more life
than I can imagine: at sixteen
goldmined in Alaska, killed a thief
trying for his poke.
Ranched in Leavenworth,
befriended Indians
against his neighbors;
sold strawberries
to the railroad women. Lectured
on mind-enchantment to movie starlets,
was paid top prices for mystery stories.
I listen to his tales, a Desdemona
pitying, unbelieving - not really enraged
at the waste of my youth.
I burn in the flame of his cremation.
Sorting my ashes from his I wonder
what will I remember at my end:
not the boys I danced with,
not even the delight of his mind.
Surely a tree in the alley
lighted by a finch singing louder
than the din of ash-cans.
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