Their Music
He stopped playing when she died.
The piano lay trapped in a white dusty sheet,
a dead body waiting for the morgue.
His fingers ached for the feel
of the slippery keys,
extensions of his long fingers.
She came to him in a dream,
danced again as he played,
her long, nimble legs threaded
the air like sewing needles,
the music’s current
coursed through her
like a second heart beat.
The last song she danced to
played over and over again
in his mind for years,
hibernated in his finger tips,
a caged bird longing for release.
He pulled the sheet off,
clouds of dust swirled
like clusters of insects in the sunlight.
As he played,
the notes surged
through him like rising tide.
And her ghost performed in front of him,
her movements flowed like water,
like the rain that fell from his eyes,
in a sea of sound.
Sewing Memories
She is sewing the tapestry of her life
with tender threads of time.
Memories faded like laundry hanging
out to dry in the sun
are stitched together piece by piece.
Red fabric with the “S” Superman logo —
from the T-shirt she lived in
when she was five.
Rough black fabric —
her father’s stubble that pricked her
skin when he hugged her goodnight.
Green shimmery fabric —
the color of ocean waves
she rode every summer as a child.
Yellow fabric —
the color that danced into her mind
when she smelled her mom’s Egyptian soup.
Rainbow fabric —
for the wistfulness she felt
when dancing to “their song”
“Forever Young” on her wedding day.
Black fabric —
the color of her daughter’s
long beautiful lashes.
Gray fabric —
the absence of her father,
sick with dementia,
gone long before he died.
Burp cloth fabric —
a reminder of the sleepless nights
she spent nursing twin boys.
Jean fabric —
her mom’s jeans torn
to save her life on the day of her stroke.
She sees them all now,
her memories threaded together.
She feels them all now,
sliding through her fingers.
Miriam Manglani is a writer with poetry recently published in Sparks of Calliope, One Art, Glacial Hills Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Lothlorian Poetry Journal.
Sparks of Calliope 