Thursday, October 15, 2020

can i offer you tea?

she's lonely.

i can see that in the way she offers
me a drink

after looking at the wallpaper
she wants hung.

tea?

perhaps some cookies. can you
stay
for a few minutes.

i'd like to tell you  a story about
how i came
to live here.

it was forty years ago.

i look at my watch. i fold up my
book.
sure. i look around the room.

the old sofa. 
china in the hutch.
the pictures of family on the walls.
the white vase
on the mantle.

it's a long story, one she's told
before. but i listen.
i shift my feet.

i nod politely, but offer no words.

she needs to tell me this tale.
she wants me to
know her story.

she wants this life to mean more.

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