On that late cranky winter afternoon
you sat downstairs with a cup of coffee
on the tray of your walker while I
rummaged upstairs looking for my glasses.
That afternoon, a blank book for both of us,
I came back downstairs with dregs of cold tea
in a mug I’d left, nothing more important,
no secret message in the tea leaves, no hint
Of how to connect again in our own waning light
but when I took off my glasses and slid
over the arm of your chair into your lap
it was as if a plug, electric and three-pronged
Got jammed into some hidden power source
and I expected us to leap up
out of the prison of our bodies
with our terrible knees
and dance.
Lucia Owen moved to western Maine over fifty years ago to teach high school English. Long retired, she still lives there and writes, gardens and rides. Until his recent death she was the caregiver for her husband of forty-seven years. Her work has appeared in The Cafe Review, Rust & Moth, Spire: the Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability and Writing the Land: Maine as well as in several anthologies. Recently she has had work accepted by The Bellevue Literary Review and Please See Me.
“In the Mood” was previously published in Prospectus: A Literary Offering, Winter-Spring 2022
