The Widow Will Not Be Returning
The widow across the street
has been taken to live
with her family, and later
perhaps to a hospice.
Last week I was called to
witness her will. Now Rufus
her little dog has gone to
friends in Entrican Ave,
her neat blue Hyundai is parked
unused in the street, and
her pohutukawa
taller by these forty years
are assuming the scarlet
mantle of another
December. The end of an
era, we say to one
another uneasily in
Tohunga Crescent.
In the Bay the tide
insinuates among mangroves
and goes again without a
word – as it did before
Cook, as it did before
Kupe. The blue heron lifts
itself skyward on elegant
wings and nothing’s changed
except, it seems, the widow
will not be returning.
C K Stead