My grandmother had a secret
in the form of a letter
we found after she died.
It was a marriage proposal
from a man who was not
my grandfather.
She kept it with her sixty years
hidden at the base of her bed
in a trunk.
No one knew that the preacher’s wife
was a mystery
even to those closest to her.
I like to imagine
the memory of her romance
was passionate
and carried her through
all the sermons about sin.
She’s starving herself.
Most of us
can’t help her.
We wish we could
pass
on a cookie,
or ice cream,
chocolate lava cake—
second helpings of any kind.
We wish we had more self
control
over what we put in our mouths,
so our bones would peek out
from our flesh;
Showing the shape of our skeleton.
She’ll probably die from poor nutrition,
and we’ll die of envy—
how she looked so skinny
floating on the pillows
of a coffin.
retired from a career as a social worker so that she could finally pursue her first
love, poetry. Her work has been published in Pearl and A Year In Ink,
and she has a poem coming out in Stepaway Magazine this month. She lives in
San Diego with her husband of fifteen years.