Quiet Gathering
For a week with the family gone
I have tended the house,
cared for the things you loved.
Out in the back garden, tomatoes
burden the vines. Ripened,
they now lie fallen, juices spilled.
I gather those still leaning
from the vine, the pale orange,
the clear red. In the picking,
they overflow my hands. I make
a basket of the front of my skirt,
carry them into the waiting kitchen.
I pick a golden-petalled flower, dark
center intact, a single bloom
to keep me company through the night
in this house filled with the harvest
that outlived you, this house
now too silent, this house of rest.
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