For all the times that she'd been
rode gently and put away with
all the burrs combed out of her coat,
this marked the end of it all.
Rode roughshod and put away
somewhere beneath the Marianas Trench.
Among all of the people reaping and sowing,
the woman in the cloak stands with her back
to the rest of us.
She can't hide the ache in her back
anymore than I can hide the ache in my heart.
We've both been done wrong.
I always want to sound calm and kind,
but I feel the shrillness of my voice
whistling through the stillness —
when I call to her,
I don't expect an answer.
She turns to look at me,
and that is enough —
enough to see that
other women like me, like us,
have weathered storms and squalls.
