The Secrets
The first secret she told long ago,
while sitting on the beach with a friend
who was nervous about settling down:
"Look it's temporary, chasing these children, wiping tears...."
(As if she knew the fullness would go like the tide).
Today's secret she keeps to herself.
When her family announces a visit, offering take-out,
No, she says, and instead she shops, washes and chops,
and mixes and bakes. She loves that.
She brings out the high chair and the toys,
clears her long table of the piled up papers
of a solitary person.
It isn't Easter, just an ordinary Sunday in April.
Just to have them all there together
is like all the Easters, and Christmas.
She recalls a shell cast up beyond the seaweed line,
marking a tide higher than the rest,
shining and brimming right up to the dunes.