CELEBRATING A TAPESTRY OF LIFE

Juanita Book

By Juanita Torrence-Thompson

©Copyright by Juanita Torrence-Thompson


JUANITA TORRENCE-THOMPSON is a poet/writer/speaker whose award-winning work appears in U.S. and Canadian journals and online. See her poetry and book information at: Poetry Town. See Barbara Hantman's review of Torrence-Thompson's CELEBRATING A TAPESTRY OF LIFE (Torderwarz Publishing Company)at: The Pedestal Magazine

HOMEFRONT MEMORIES

Daphne stoked the fire with a fury.
She'd need more firewood soon.
Why wasn't Tom here to collect it?
She'd have to hire Old Gus to chop wood.
The heck with the environment
She was cold, she thought.
Her eyes swept across the cabin livingroom --
Their summer home in Vermont.
They landed on the multi-colored
Poncho from Mexico.
God, did that bring back memories.
Texas and Mexico, Mexico and Texas.
But she promised herself she wouldn't reminisce.
It was too painful without Tom.
Why wasn't he there to reminisce with her?
She walked past the Americana furnishings
Glanced at her reflection in the mirror.
At 30 she still had her girlish figure.
Wouldn't allow it to blow up in a pregnancy.
Her ebony tresses were in stark contrast
To her creamy skin and blue eyes.
"Utopia," as the cabin was called,
Had a telephone but no television.
A unanimous decision.
A true retreat from the world.
Why wasn't Tom there?
Why couldn't they go hiking in the woods
Then come home and make love?
She an author and blue-blood Bostonian
He a Maine man -- a historian.
She'd just been interviewed
On TV by David Frost.
Tom would've loved to see that.
But no one was destined to see it;
LBJ preempted the darn TV show
To talk about the darn Vietnam War.
Where was Tom?
She knew where he was.
In the darn Vietnam War.
Refused to use her connections
To avoid the draft.
Where was Tom?
In Hell.