VOLUNTEER WORKER

She is lonely
Make no mistake
Amits it too
Memory not so sharp
White hair once chestnut
Surrounds a face
Now sagged, wrinkled, worried
Faded blue cataract eyes
His hip joint is bad too
causing pain, trying not to complain
But she does
I can't make sense of the injustice
She says.

I talk to him all the time
Speaking of her dead husband
How could he go off and leave me
I can't understand it
Being alone like this
Don't want to die
Want to live, love, laugh again
Oh dear it's so unfair
And now all I have to wait for
Is seeing him once more and not
So sure about that.
I might miss him, unable to find him
Then what will I do.

She looks at me beseechingly
There is little I can say
As I gaze at the photo of a radiant
Woman, pretty, about twenty
In snappy high heels
Short frilly skirt, happy
With no resemblance
To this sharp voiced
Who barks at the customers
In a dreary thrift shop
On the main road to nowhere
Filling in the moments of her life
In a constant state of angry longing

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