The late March afternoon was dripping grey
when she showed up, unexpectedly, at my door.
I made a pot of coffee and cut the custard pie
still warm from the oven. We settled at the
kitchen table, chatting awhile, catching up—
new grandchild, new poem, a weekend
at the coast before the summer crowds,
an old, dear friend who phoned,
promising to do so again.
Then she put down her fork,
took a deep breath, and told me.

“There’s a ray of hope,” she insisted,
glancing out a darkening window.
I reached across the table
and squeezed her hand.
“April will be here soon.”
Then I looked out the window too.

A cold, relentless rain fell down.
The soaked and shivering trees didn’t say
a single word about spring.

Dale Cross Purvis is retired from the English faculty of Georgia Southern University. Home again, she lives today in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her poems for young readers appear in Cricket, Highlights, and Ladybug. Other poems have been published in Visions International, Orchards Poetry Journal, and Time of Singing.