Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine poet laureate.

Weslea Sidon, a poet from Seal Cove, tells the story of a woman who returns to a field and a memory.

Closure

By Weslea Sidon

Two years after he died

she came back to the field

they had last walked as lovers.

For decades

touch had been their sport and refuge —

hands, lips always finding new delights

in old passion.

She could sense him now,

his steady arm holding her

the first time she raised

her timid lips to his,

the last time as she raised her eager mouth

to shush the laughter above his silver beard.

She could sense him too soon after,

the illness souring his lips,

his fingers pushing hers away,

closing each button she opened,

refusing even memory of ecstasy.

She came back to the field to see

if the stand of lupine

had held the shape of her memories

long enough to give them back,

if love left a trail

that she could follow forward

even as it closed behind.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2014 Weslea Sidon. Reprinted from “The Fool Sings,” Rain Chain Press, 2014, by permission of Weslea Sidon.

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