Nanpwrimo Post 5

Magdalena

Magdalena hurts. She pains me. The memory nags at me like an unturned screw, like a jacket with a closed sleeve.
How long has it been now? Decades! We walked together a long way, matching our paces. There was a point of
convergence when it seemed we two were one.

Magdalena hurts. In her heart, she aches for times now lost. She looks at her children with love, but thinks
often of what they cost her. She dreamed the big dream - career, money, fame. She laid the framework for
it all. Then he came, and everything was abandoned. And now, she looks at her children with love but thinks
ever of what they cost her.

Magdalena remembers the flags waving in the wind, and a kiss that made her laugh. Sunrise by Lake Michigan,
bittercold mornings with glasses iced over, being lead like a blind woman home. And she misses, as do I, the old
navy blue pea coat that warmed us both on many afternoons.

Magdalena goes to church and does penance for her longings.
Hail Mary, full of grapes, blessed is the fruit of the loom, Jesus!
Was she real? Was she ever real? Or did I dream her?

Magdalena 2

I was writing letters to you yesterday, in my journal.
I no longer know your address, or where you've gone in your
life, but eve now, now that decades have passed, now that I
am old and carry a potbelly, now that my voice is broken and
my vision blurs, and each morning becomes a tired ritual, fueled
by pills and remedies, I still talk to you in my book.
In my dream, you were chasing a spark. You caught it in a tiny box,
full of dry wood shavings and you blew on it to fan it into flame.
"This," you said, "Is faith. I will keep it close and fan it every chance
I get." Then you walked away without a backward glance.

Magdalena 3

I was washing clothes in the basement with Tony. We heard sounds on the
stairs. I looked up to see Magdalena dressed in a loose Marquette sweatshirt
with a crucifix around her neck. She also wore a headband in imitation of
Olivia Newton John. She stormed into the laundry room, stalked past us to
a dryer, swiftly took her things then stormed back out again. I asked Tony
"What was that all about?" He just shrugged. Then I said "She's cute isn't she?"
Tony grimaced and said, "No she isn't!"