as if the record of my life was scratched;
the needle jumped and now it is July.
June bled out slowly, in reality. My mind
goes back and plays the record at
another speed to slow it down, revisit
every moment of the early part with projects
filling time and then the phone call on the 10th
that stopped the clock, the calendar,
the calm that settled in for days and weeks,
that lulled me into thinking I was fine.
Decisions, deadlines, Daddy's death
and boxes of the memories he left behind,
photographs of people with no names,
of buildings without people, trees, flowers
more than anything as if their momentary
blooms had been a lesson that we didn't
even recognize the need to learn.
Smiling children who grew up with him
would sit and weep on padded pews and later,
shovel dirt inside the hole beside my son.
But that was then and now it is July, too soon
and yet, in many ways, not soon enough.
(c) Ellen Gillette, 2019
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