“At the Window” (detail), oil on canvas, by Winslow Homer, 1872.

by RC deWinter

your mother’s gardenias still bloom
on the blue porch with the faded bench
nailhead eyes staring out at
the sidewalk baked into ancient rectangles
scarred and pitted
and never in all these years repaired by the town

you still live behind the blackout window
silent as the sphinx
sweating in darkness
decaying in the stifling atmosphere of
nothing changed in sixty years
i wonder what asteroid collided with your life

leaving a cratered womb that swallowed you whole
no one ever sees you watering those gardenias
and you never answer my knock
i suppose the next time we meet
you’ll be laid out in a pine box
taking that secret with you

carriage.2

RC deWinter is a Connecticut writer/digital artist whose poetry has been anthologized in New York City Haiku, a collection published by the New York Times, and in Uno: A Poetry Anthology. Her poetry has appeared in print in 2River View, Pink Panther Magazine, Another Sun, Plum Ruby Review, and Garden Tripod, as well as in many online publications. Her art has been published as well, and also used as set décor on ABC-TV’s “Desperate Housewives.”