Image courtesy of Todd MacDonald. Shared via a Creative Commons license.

—-

Neighbors Sanderson

Warm summer night.
Windows flung open,
are dressed in curtains of light.

Old Mr. Sanderson across the way,
kneads his wife’s plump arms,
rubs her hands and swollen feet.

The scent of eucalyptus,
wafting into the air,
subdues the smells
of frying oils and salsa,
and settles in our noses.

The fragrant ointment
glistens on Mrs. Sanderson’s
thick, veined hands
and fleshy fudge-brown arms.
Her face, tense with the
hurdles of aging, slackens.

Evening ritual done,
Mr. Sanderson nestles
next to her and reads
from a well-read book
she had dedicated to him.
and made famous long ago.

It is then we shut out distractions,
shush those in mid sentences,
strain our ears to hear elegiac words
that speak and sing for a
voice now stilled by stroke.

In baritone, Mr. Sanderson reads
about seductive flesh and
love in spring shifting into summer.
There is no autumn or winter.
It is a love superior.

—-

Althea Romeo-Mark was born in Antigua, West Indies and grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in The Virgin Islands, The United States, Liberia, England, and Switzerland, where she has resided since 1991. The stories of immigrants, their suffering and survival are a major inspiration for her poems. She was awarded the Marguerite Cobb McKay Prize by the Editorial Board of The Caribbean Writer in June, 2009. She was one of a hundred guest poets invited to read at the XX International Poetry Festival of Medellin, Colombia 2010. Her recent work has been included in Poems for the Hazara: An Anthology and Collaborative Poem, WomanSpeak: A journal of writing and Art by Caribbean Women, The Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books, Step Away Magazine, and KRITYA.