Saturday Afternoons – A Poem

Saturdays

You used to say you loved to hear the rain outside our window
On Saturday afternoons spent in bed

A nap became a perfect world inhabited by two

Legs entwined, my head on your massive muscular chest,
Warmed by your love
We talked of everything and nothing

“Let’s pretend we’re living in our truck, we’re traveling the country, we’re snuggled under blankets, napping in the truck bed,” you’d say. “We’re vagabonds.”

And you’d pull the ratty old blanket – the one you wouldn’t let me discard – up under our chins in our imaginary cocoon

“Listen to the train. I’ve always loved hearing trains in the distance,” you’d say.

And I’d snuggle closer in your arms
And I’d cherish your romantic soul.

Kisses and caresses
Strokes and imaginings

Oneness
Wholeness
Contentedness

Illness
Death
Loneliness

Today is a rainy Saturday
And I am transported back to

Our perfect world

Alone in our bed
Under the ratty old blanket

Your words echo in my head
memories cause such incredible pain and longing that I’m not able to breathe

But after the sobs subside, what remains is pleasure
at what we had,
At what some will never find.

Alone in our bed
I still talk to you, still feel you, still sense you

And you are here with me again
And the real world means nothing

31march2018

About the author

Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”

In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.

Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.

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