Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Closure

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Weslea Sidon, a poet from Seal Cove, tells the story of a woman who returns to a field and a memory.

Closure by Weslea Sidon

Two years after he died
she came back to the field
they had last walked as lovers.

For decades
touch had been their sport and refuge --
hands, lips always finding new delights
in old passion.

She could sense him now,
his steady arm holding her
the first time she raised
her timid lips to his,
the last time as she raised her eager mouth
to shush the laughter above his silver beard.

She could sense him too soon after,
the illness souring his lips,
his fingers pushing hers away,
closing each button she opened,
refusing even memory of ecstasy.

She came back to the field to see
if the stand of lupine
had held the shape of her memories
long enough to give them back,

if love left a trail
that she could follow forward
even as it closed behind.

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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2014 Weslea Sidon. Reprinted from The Fool Sings, Rain Chain Press, 2014, by permission of Weslea Sidon. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.