I command the room
in the center of the house,
framed by a broad French door.
Reclaimed wood, worm-hole marred,
deep-sea green, and square.
Two chairs north and south,
two placemats and

too many ghosts.

On me she’s delivered
decades of meals,
decided her fortune and fate.

Over me she’s belly-laughed,
argued, collapsed in tears,
traded a battalion of truth for lies.

With me she ponders,
warms leftover night in sun.
She wonders, writes,
whispers to wildlife,
sights a new deer path
and hones her instinct.

Today, head in hand,
her gaze like gauze,
she squints
to see the years ahead—
the dinners she will serve
the love she wants to make.

The crumbs she must discard
to wipe my surface clean.

Catherine Arra is the author of Her Landscape, Poems Based on the Life of Mileva Marić Einstein (Finishing Line Press, 2020), (Women in Parentheses) (Kelsay Books, 2019), Writing in the Ether (Dos Madres Press, 2018), and three chapbooks. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous journals online and in print, and in several anthologies. Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com