Joanna Gilman Hyde

Eye sit beside a cold grey sea

anchored by my cup of tea

Alone I am — but eye don’t care

for now my life is free

My brother never saw

the house I’m living in,

neither did my mother.

They both died

too early in my life

when I was with another

set of circumstance

calling me to strife —

First the father of my 3

rejected for the other

husband whom I no longer have

rejected for a lover

in my mind and in my heart

but he is gone through time

why bother to count those years

now my life is mine.

Instead of waking

to my former husband’s kissable head

I looked to a sky of gold and pink

and to the spruce of our first snow

this winter, and I reached

for my phone

to review the end

of Self Organizing Galaxy —

my painting of blue and purple

yellow and red

I watched my face

of 23 years

then got out of bed

to wash it now

and brush my hair —

my cat wants to be fed