local_library Waiting, Still

by Kathleen Lawrence

Published in Issue No. 265 ~ June, 2019

I’ve been waiting for you

and looking for you,

in your empty chair,

at your dark house,

in our special place,

and on the sofa, beside me.

 

I am haunted by you,

in the singular shadow

that follows me strolling,

the vacant passenger seat,

my partner in crime

is now missing in action.

I’ve been waiting

for you, so long,

the confident co-pilot

in my car,

and favorite friend,

in my sheets,

I wait.

 

I’ve been waiting for you

as the clock ticks,

the hands move,

the calendar pages flip,

and my birthdays

come and go.

It’s been thirty fast

and long years

that I’ve been standing still,

waiting.

 

I am stuck in the hourglass,

a piece of sand forever suspended,

an alarm clock that never rings,

and a door knock that never comes.

I am a metaphor,

never realized.

 

I’ll keep watching,

from century to century,

through frosty windows

on winter mornings,

and through lonely starlit,

summer nights,

and through Sunday church services,

and Thursday’s book club,

and all my Friday happy hours,

I’ll watch for you.

 

I still wait for you.

 

 

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Kathleen A. Lawrence has had poems published in Rattle (Poets Respond), Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Scryptic, Silver Birch Press, haikuniverse, Silver Blade Magazine, The Wild Word magazine (Germany), Altered Reality Magazine, Undertow Tanka Review, New Verse News, and in the anthology, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, among others. Her poem, "Just Rosie" was nominated for a 2017 Pushcart Prize and a 2018 Rhysling Award. Her poem "Vampirette" was also nominated for a Rhysling Award.