ANGELS FOR SALLYANN
The world as Sallyann
knew it crashed
just hours after they snorkeled
in the blue clear waters
of Micronesia.
Rushing to catch their plane
her husband stumbled, couldn’t
walk.
The first angel, a doctor
with FEMA,
was passing by.
In the clinic other angels
appeared,
cared for Stuart, watched
with Sallyann,
smoothed the way for their
separate passages.
Bereft and reeling, with
the help
of the people of Chuuk,
new friends
she softly calls her angels,
Sallyann somehow got through
the next horrible days.
Packing each item of importance—
passports, wallets, photos,
shells—
into her sturdy canvas travel
bag,
she was never more than
an inch
from its comforting presence.
At home she rebuilt her
life,
crossed off list after list
of “must dos,”
transferred essentials to
a plain black purse.
Dropping with fatigue
after a morning of chores,
she stopped at an old friend’s
house,
another angel, to revive
over a cup of tea—
and discovered, with racing
pulse,
her purse was gone.
She and friend retraced
her movements.
At Costco, amid sighs of
relief,
she learned an employee
had found the purse
right where she’d
parked it and tucked it
in the office of the huge
store.
Sallyann marveled at her
coping skills
in the crisis on Chuuk,
at the complete blank
of her mind once safely
home, and at the angels
who appeared each time they
were needed.
SARAJEVO
He left in spring, juicy
with youth,
cello in his arms, eyes
full
of tears and the view fading—
his beloved city’s
spires hazy with distance.
Decades later in December
he returned,
cello in his arms, eyes
full
of tears at the rubble,
his city’s spires
crumbled, run through with
rats.
His heart shredded with
the knowledge
that his own people had
done this—
destroyed their city of
dreams,
slaughtered their hopes.
When the Serbs started shelling
at twilight
the old man clutched his
cello, ignored
pleas to enter the bomb
shelter, walked
into the night alone.
At the pile of broken stone
and twisted steel
that once was his home,
he climbed
with aching legs to the
top.
Settling himself on a flattened
slab,
he stroked his bow across
the strings. Wisps
of white hair blew in the
gentle wind.
On his upturned face snowflakes
fell. Shells exploded
at a short distance and,
in the growing dark,
the essence of ancient Christmas
carols drifted like incense
through the ruins.
FIRST
CHRISTMAS AGAIN
She bolted from the house,
from the turkey gravy she
was stirring,
from the guests with wine
glasses
tilted to their lips,
from her new step-daughter’s
family.
In the slight protection
of the eaves
she opened her mouth, released
into the rain the wail that
had built
through an endless round
of hosting.
Bent from the waist, she
roared out sobs
she’d swallowed all
day.
Heedless of her hairdo
she stepped away from shelter
into the storm, tipped her
head back,
let rain wash down her cheeks
with the tears.
Returning through a distant
door
she splashed cold water
on red, swollen eyes,
dragged a comb through flattened
hair,
freshened makeup. Pinning
a smile
on still-trembling lips,
she rejoined the group
apologizing to no one,
including her husband
of a few months,
for missing the husband
no longer there.
IMPRISONED
Mother’s in jail,
spinning a haze
of alcohol fumes.
Nineteen days later
the two-year-old girl is
discovered
snuggled in her plastic
bathtub
at home. Thumb in mouth,
covered by a bath towel,
she watches TV.
Never the tidiest diner,
the child is covered with
crusts
of the ketchup, mustard,
dry pasta
she found to eat.
Somehow the mother
forgot to mention
her daughter.
WITNESS
Around the bend a young
squirrel
lies in the middle of the
street,
his plush gray fur luxuriant
against the worn asphalt.
As my feet crunch on gravel
he flops to his other side,
tail twitching a plumed
random rhythm.
Of their own accord my legs
slow,
mind races over options.
Beaming safe passage into
black eyes
shining some unknown animal
thought into mine,
I walk on.
Beside the road the sibling
scuttles,
approach, retreat,
fast up a small almond tree,
whirling in circles of distress.
On my return I halt at vision’s
edge,
watch the young other
run from the roadside, place
paws
on his brother’s form.
He chatters
encouragement? farewell?
The live one paces one circuit
around the brother, still
now
and curled, then races up
the tree
where a mockingbird sits,
silent,
among green almonds.
Patricia
Wellingham-Jones, former
psychology researcher/writer/editor,
has been published in journals,
newspapers, anthologies,
and online. She has won
numerous awards and been
the featured poet in several
journals. Her most recent
books are Don’t Turn
Away: Poems About Breast
Cancer, Labyrinth: Poems
& Prose, Apple Blossoms
at Eye Level and Lummox
Press Little Red Book series,
A Gathering Glance. She
lives in northern California
PWJ
Publishing
http://www.snowcrest.net/pamelaj/wellinghamjones/home.htm
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