Couple, Not Odd

he: kind, a gentle man
and gentleman,
a ready smile for children,
as if they alone
could grasp the life behind
blood-shot eyes
of unshed tears.

she: determined,
ambitious but in a time
that wouldn’t do
for a woman so
she moved
in other ways
other circles.

he: rooted
to companions
in bars, watered
by rock-and-rye.

she: rooted
to a place, an idea
of place, the same place
for fourscore and six.

Gentleness matched
determination. So they
lived, simply, if
sometimes quarrelsome.

he: missed her
passionately
when he died.

she: mourned
him until she died,
passionately.

This poem is submitted for One Stop Poetry’s One Shot Wednesday. To see other submitted poems, please visit One Stop Poetry. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Couple, by Bobby Mikul via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.