She was a Warm, Red Sweater

She was a warm red sweater cozy and kind

Cup after cup of stout coffee, sweetened with

lots of sugar, whitened by copious cream

Archway cookies, plentiful, drawn from a

kitchen drawer

She was a warm read sweater with

a listening ear and soothing words of comfort

But she’s not here anymore

She was a warm red sweater who walked

the railroad tracks for miles and miles with me

Talking history, literature and philosophy and

What it was like to go from servants to poor, from shackled to free

She was a warm red sweater with pockets

full of apples from her orchard and

a smile wide if not true

She was the sweetest, woeful girl

I ever knew

She was a warm red sweater who birthed three

of her own, filling the gaps of her youth

when she had been so very alone

They became her works of Art because

long ago she laid her pencils and brushes down

No one ever encouraged her, so

she left that art behind

She was a warm red sweater, who packed lunches

for others, fully grown

and drank cups of coffee, quietly contemplating on her own

She listened and she watched

She nurtured as she talked but she

never told anyone that

her heart was not home

She was a warm unread sweater who

gave and gave with little return

-it never seemed to bother her

 to quietly yearn

Until one day she didn’t say good-bye

But simply walked out the door

It’s been years, but finally:

There is no warm red sweater

anymore