A Widow’s View on Staying Single

When stuffing a king-sized duvet
into its newly washed cover—
matching long sides
and wide—a partner
might find a sock
hidden in the corner—it helps
to be two. But is that reason
enough to ponder dating?

I don’t mind lugging stuff
to a dumpster or replacing a bulb,
but when I’m hurt by a friend’s
harum-scarum remark
it would be nice for a partner
to say: I never liked her anyway.
And if I were sure he’d outlive me,
I might turn my parched skin inside
out for love again.

Nana

Limelighted by the sun—tiny spores
even finer and whiter
than my grandmother’s hair—hitch a ride
on a blackbird’s tail before falling
and rooting their starchy shoots below,
giving birth to reeds that line
the marshy path I tracked with my mother’s
mother, my hand in hers
then hers in mine—her fluffy-seed hair
tucked under a straw hat,
her dancing-on-the-piano flapper-flare slowed,
I’m told, by the death of her young son.
Nana, who modeled a love
that flowed without hitch, orbited parental no’s
and whirled in the direction of yes.

Judith Fox’s nonfiction writing was published in national magazines for decades, but she didn’t start writing poetry seriously until after her first photograph book, I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer’s was released (The book was named “one of the best photography books of 2009” by Photo-Eye Magazine). She’s been studying with poetry teachers since 2015. Fox is also a fine art photographer; her photographs have been exhibited in museum shows and are in the permanent collections of numerous museums. Fox is widowed, lives in Los Angeles and is working on a chapbook currently titled, Bridge to New Music. www.judithfox.com