Half-Hearted Redemption

For the last ten years of her life
my aunt sat vigil by the phone.
'He'll remember this year.'

Words my mother could recite
by rote every spring.

Her birth day.

When she was young and beautiful
he was her sun.
His hand in hers,
they roamed the parks,
love words breathed into small ears,
nightmares soothed in her lap.

Her last Christmas,
a hastily wrapped package...
Bath powder.

The stench drove the cat outside.

When he showed for the funeral,
eyes searching her room,
I wondered if it was the powder he looked for,
or redemption,
too late in its half-hearted request.

Pris Campbell
(c)2002


Dedicated to Orpha D Lipscomb

Published by Blackmail Press,
Summer 2002.
(revised slightly since that publication)

Photographs: family archives
Music: Sun in the Stream by Enya

Return to Homepage
Return to Poetry Index