Poem: "Sorrow Like the Taste of Rain"

This poem was inspired by prompts from technoshaman and e_scapism101.  It has been sponsored by technoshaman.

Content notes: bereavement, intolerance, loneliness, love (but not falling in love), asexuality, childlessness, innocence, alternative family arrangements, FEELS.  If these include sensitive topics for you, use your own judgment on whether to read further.  Also, having a box of tissues would be prudent in general.

After her husband died,
a well-meaning uncle said to her,
"Nobody's going to want a girl
with a four-year-old," and besides,
she was no spring chicken herself,
was she now.  Not anymore.

It was supposed to be permission
not to rush back into dating,
but honestly, she couldn't care
if she never went on another date again.

That part of her had burned out
with her husband's death,
cold enough that she could touch it
with her naked hand and never feel
the least flicker of heat.

The bright fire of her heart
had been quenched in tears,
leaving nothing but damp gritty ash,
and she was okay with that --
although she never said so --
for she had sworn herself to him
forever and she had meant it.

What love was left to her
lived in the sunbeam of her daughter's smile,
innocent and brilliant, warm rather than hot,
light enough for her to live by.

They went together,
in the evenings after preschool
and the crowded weekend mornings,
to the park at the end of their block
where they played in the sandbox
whether it was wet or dry
and sat even on the squeaky swings
and rode the merry-go-round
that was a little bit rusty.

It was there she first noticed him,
widow-mother watching the other parents,
because he was not a parent.
He always came alone.

Her first thought was poor fellow
and not predator because --
while his gaze held a desperate hunger
as it slipped across the trilling, giggling children --
it held something more loudly rushing,
more deeply familiar:

it held sorrow,
sorrow like the taste of rain
left behind in the cold wet air
after it has long since stopped falling.

The widow-mother breathed in
the grey flavor of his grief,
mingled it between her lungs with her own,
and eventually sat down beside him
when her daughter flitted off to make new friends
with a pair of twins in identical princess-pink dresses.

He looked sidelong at her,
gave her half a smile, and said,
"I'm afraid that I'm not very good company,
and I'm not really looking to start a relationship."

"Same here," she said.
"I don't mind sitting with someone
who doesn't have too many expectations, though."
He nodded, and so they sat together,
until the four-year-old fluttered back
to announce loudly that it was time
for peanut butter and jelly.

They met often, after that,
the widow-mother and the single man
sharing a park bench and silence
occasionally broken by a whispered confidence.

She told him of her husband's death
and how she did not -- could never --
desire a replacement.

He told her of his love for children
that clashed with his body's inability to father any
and his heart's disinterest in romance,
which did not technically disqualify him
for adoption anymore, but well,
given a choice most people would pick
someone else to parent an unwanted infant.

It was family that they missed the most,
both of them -- having a warm body
to hold on a cold rainy day,
someone to ask and to tell how it went,
whatever it was at the time,
a shoulder to cry on -- yes,
that most of all for them.

The idea grew, very slowly
between the two of them,
that perhaps they might make
something more of this than it was
and something less than what anyone else
would expect upon seeing them together.

It was then that they began
to explore the possibility
of forming a different kind of family,
as they played together in the sandbox
with a rambunctious four-year-old between them
and went out to dinner (that was not a date)
and a movie (that was a cartoon).

When they decided to get married,
it was for the sake of the child,
so that he would have rights
to continue taking care of her
if anything should happen to the widow-mother.

They explained this very meticulously
to the justice of the peace, and why
there would be no ring to replace the one
already on the bride's finger, and why
the vows were so very different.

The wrinkled old man just smiled benevolently
and said, "I haven't taken off my late wife's ring either,
nor do I ever intend to.  Carry on."

So there was no exchange of rings
and no kissing the bride,
although the now-five-year-old
squealed in glee and planted sloppy kisses
on everyone she could reach.

What came into the widow-mother's heart,
slowly but surely, now that
she was sort of a wife again,
was not fire but something else:

a slender shoot of fireweed
spearing up through the cool damp ash,
its red leaves as pointed as flames,
bearing within it the hidden code to create

buds that might someday burst into flower.