No one could believe Jenny
Was happy living alone
So she soberly accepted their sympathy
Like she accepted other
White Elephants
She put in a big box
In the back closet
And thanked them very much
Then...clicked the lock quick
As if hiding a secret
And ate a big salad
In front of the whales and dolphins
On PBS
And spent an hour
At her keyboard
Processing her words
And sat twenty minutes
At the window
Watching the storm dance branches
And stayed on the phone
An hour and a half
Until a hundred hungry children
Were fed
And then took a bath
Three chapters long
And slept smiling and sprawled
In her queen sized bed.
~Carol Lynn Pearson
